5 -0- 



■U, * 8 I A •-' ^ 



V S * * 7 






\, ^ 






%<• 






# -' 








O 






>- 


o x 






•n^ 



- 






A , N C . V- 



^ 1 

- 



A - - 












•^ \ 






O V 

v 5 -^ = - 






A?' 

y . 






O.V- 



- V 



SI v 11 



V * 



•X 



// 



/ : ~\ %.J 





















^ <> 



A* V V 



>J* *. v . 













** v< ^ 









V 

3 c> 



V,. <* 



?: .s ^ 












V 



<-P 



^ A "o 



*& A 



^ CV 



A 





\^-^/ 










- 








\ - \- 




<G <f 


1 7'- V N 








>. - : ^f 


-o o^' 





,0 












V 

<3 ^ 









- ^ 

Jo. 






a' 






V V^ ^ ' 



& **, 






>*'(£ 



o> ^ \ * o , ^ 



-0' X 






v o 



£5 v 



^ # ^ 'c % ^ 









'0 0^ 



• o- 






Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/spanishstoryofar02frou 



THE SPANISH STOBY OF THE ARMADA. 

ETC. 



WORKS BY JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE. 



THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND, from the Fall of Wolsey 
to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada. 12 vols, crown Svo. 3s. 6d. each. 

THE DIVORCE OF CATHERINE OF ARAGON : the 

Story as told by the Imperial Ambassadors resident at the Court of 
Henry VIII. Crown Svo. 6s. 

THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA, and other 
Essays. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
Contents. — 1. Spanish Story of the Armada— 2. Antonio Perez: an 
Unsolved Historical Riddle— 3. Saint Teresa— 4. The Templars— 5. The 
Norway Fjords— 6. Norway once more. 

ENGLISH SEAMEN IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 

Crown Svo. 6s. 

THE ENGLISH IN IRELAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH 

CENTURY. 
Cabinet Edition, 3 vols, crown Svo. 18s. 
Popular Edition, 3 vols, crown Svo. 3s. 6d. each. 

SHORT STUDIES ON GREAT SUBJECTS. 

Cabinet Edition, 4 vols, crown Svo. 24s. 
Popular Edition, 4 vols, crown Svo. 3s. 6d. each. 

LIFE AND LETTERS OF ERASMUS. Crown Svo. 6s. 

THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. Crown 8vo. 65. 

CAESAR : a Sketch. Crown Svo. 3s. 6d. 

OCEANA ; or, England and her Colonies. With 9 Illus- 
trations. Crown Svo. 2s. boards; 2s. 6d. cloth. 

THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES; or, the Bow 
of Ulysses. With 9 Illustrations. Crown Svo. 2s. boards ; 2s. (id. 
cloth. 

THE. TWO CHIEFS OF DUNBOY ; or, an Irish Romance 

Ob- the Last Century. Crown Svo. 3s. 6d. 

THOMAS CARLYLE : a History of his Life. With Three 
Portraits. Crown Svo. Vols. I. and II. 7s. Vols. III. and IV. 7s. 



London: LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 



THE SPANISH STORY 

OF 

THE ARMADA 

AND OTHER ESSAYS. 



JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, 

LATE REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OX] 



iyob Sk 'iSios iv kolvw GTaKzis 
fxr]Tiv te yapvcov TraXaiyoviov 
iroXefioi; t' kv rjpcoLuis apsTaiaiv 
ou y\rs.vcrop? dfirpl Kopivdcp 

Pindar, Olymp. Carm. XIII. 



NEW EDITION. 



LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 

LONDON AND BOMBAY. 

1896. 






\ 



Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, 
London & Bungay. 

/ 






PREFACE. 



AFTER completing my History of England from the 
fall of Wolsey to the defeat of the Spanish 
Armada, I had intended to pursue the story of the 
sixteenth century, and to write the lives of Charles the 
Fifth and Philip the Second. To them had fallen the 
task of confronting the storm which had broken over 
the rest of Europe. The opening of the Archives of 
Spain, Paris, and Vienna had for the first time made it 
possible to see the position in which they found them- 
selves, to understand their characters and to weigh 
impartially their conduct in a situation so extraordinary. 
My own partial researches had already shown me that 
the prevailing opinions about these two princes required 
wide correction, and I thought that I could not better 
employ the remainder of my life than on an enquiry 
so profoundly interesting. To regard the Emperor, to 
regard Philip merely as reactionary bigots, is as unjust 
as it is uninstructive. They had to deal with a world 
in arms, with a condition in which society was disin- 
tegrated by a universal spiritual revolt, of which the 
outcome was still utterly uncertain, and at such a crisis 



vi PREFACE. 

the wisest statesmen must have necessarily been divided 
on the conduct which duty required of them. 

The labour of investigation would have been very 
great, and the years which I could have devoted to it 
would at most have been none too many for so ambitious 
an enterprise. I was obliged by circumstances to lay 
my purpose aside until it was too late to begin ; and 
it will fall to others, perhaps better qualified than 
myself, to execute what, if successfully performed, will 
be the best service that can now be rendered to modern 
history. Of my own attempts nothing has come, or 
now can come, save a few separate studies, such as the 
story of Queen Catherine's Divorce as related by Charles 
the Fifth's ambassadors, with the slight essays which 
form half this present volume, and have been already 
published in different periodicals. 

The Divorce of Catherine has been brought out in 
a separate form as a supplement to my History of 
England. The essays I reproduce because they were 
carefully written, and I hope may have some interest 
to historical students. The defeat of the Armada trans- 
ferred the Empire of the Sea from Spain to England, 
and the Spanish account of it cannot be read without 
curiosity and even sympathy. The ' Relacion ' of 
Antonio Perez has, for three centuries, been the chief 
authority for the private character of Philip the Second. 
Philip was once titular King of England. I have 
thought it worth while to examine the character of 
his accuser. The Life of Saint Teresa exhibits the 



PREFACE. vii 

spiritual enthusiasm of the Spanish nation in its noblest 
form. 

The subjects which occupy the remainder of the 
volume have no connection with the sixteenth century. 
Others, however, beside myself will have observed, at 
least with curiosity, the majestic figures which lie on 
the floor of the Antechapel in the Temple Church, and 
will have asked themselves who and what these men 
could have been when they lived on earth in flesh and 
blood. The publication of the ' Proces des Templiers ' 
by M. Michelet provides an answer to the question. 

Sir George Lewis said that life would be very toler- 
able if it was not for its amusements. Life, however, 
without any amusements would be tedious, and books 
given wholly to serious matters are tedious also. 
Authors, like school-boys, require holidays, and the 
sketches of the Norway Fjords are the records of two 
summer excursions into those delightful regions, as a 
guest in the yacht of a friend. Our graver writings 
are the reflections of our studies. Some taste of the 
flavour of our enjoyments may be preserved in the 
diaries of our idleness. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

THE SPANISH STOEY OF THE ARMADA i 

ANTONIO PEREZ: AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE 103 

SAINT TERESA 178 

THE TEMPLARS 250 

THE NORWAY FJORDS ... 311 

NORWAY ONCE MORE ' 359 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 



I. 

I^HE fate of the great expedition sent by Philip the 
Second to restore the Papal authority in England 
has been related often in prose and verse. It is the 
most dramatic incident in our national history, and the 
materials for a faithful account of it in the contemporary 
narratives are unusually excellent. The English nature 
on that occasion was seen at its very best. The days 
had not yet come of inflated self-praise ; and the spirit 
which produces actions of real merit is usually simple 
in the description of such actions. Good wine needs 
no bush; the finest jewels need least a gaudy setting ; 
and as the newspaper correspondent was not yet born, 
and the men who did the fighting wrote also the reports, 
the same fine and modest temper is equally seen in 
both. 

Necessarily, however, Englishmen could only tell 
what they themselves had seen, and the other side of 
the story has been left untold. The Spanish historians 
have never attempted to minimise the magnitude of 
their disaster, but they have left the official records to 

B 



± THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

sleep in the shades of their public offices, and what the 
Spanish commanders might have themselves to say of 
their defeat and its causes has been left hitherto un- 
printed. I discovered myself at Simancas the narrative 
of the Accountant-General of .the Fleet, Don Pedro 
Coco Calderon, and made use of it in my own history. 
But Don Pedro's account showed only how much more 
remained to be discovered, of which I myself could find 
no record either in print or MS. 

The defect has now been supplied by the industry 
and patriotism of an officer in the present Spanish 
Navy, who has brought together a collection of letters 
and documents bearing on the subject which are signally 
curious and interesting. 1 Captain Fernandez Duro 
deserves grateful thanks and recognition, as enabling us 
for the first time really to understand what took place. 
But more than that, he reproduces the spirit and genius 
of the time ; he enables us to see, face to face, the De 
Valdez, the Recaldes, the Oquendos, the De Leyvas, 
who had hitherto been only names to us. The ' Iliad ' 
would lose half its interest if we knew only Agamemnon 
and Achilles, and knew nothing of Priam and Hector. 
The five days' battle in the English Channel in August 
1588 was fought out between men on both sides of a 
signally gallant and noble nature ; and when the as- 
perities of theology shall have mellowed down at last, 
Spanish and English authorities together will furnish 
materials for a great epic poem. 



1 La Armada hivencible. Por el Capitan Fernandez Duro. 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 3 

Until that happy and still far-distant time shall 
arrive, we must appropriate and take up into the story 
Captain Duro's contribution. With innocent necro- 
mancy he calls the dead out of their graves, and makes 
them play their drama over again. With his assistance 
we will turn to the city of Lisbon on April 25 of the 
Annas Mirabilis. The preparations were then all but 
completed for the invasion of England and the over- 
throw of the Protestant heresy. From all parts of 
Catholic Europe the prayers of the faithful had ascended 
for more than a year in a stream of passionate entreaty 
that God would arise and make His power known. 
Masses had been said day after day on fifty thousand 
altars ; and devout monks and nuns had bruised their 
knees in midnight watches on the chapel pavements. 
The event so long hoped for was to come at last. On 
that day the consecrated standard was to be presented 
in state to the Commander-in-Chief of the Expedition. 
Catholics had collected from every corner of the world : 
Spanish and Italian, French and Irish, English and 
German, owning a common nationality in the Church. 
The Portuguese alone of Catholic nations looked on in 
indifference. Portugal had been recently annexed by 
force to Spain. The wound was still bleeding, and 
even religion failed to unite the nobles and people in 
common cause with their conquerors. But Lisbon had 
ceased to be a Portuguese city. Philip dealt with it as 
he pleased, and the Church of Portugal, at least, on this 
occasion, was at Philip's disposition. 

There was something of real piety in what was going 



4 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

on ; and there was much of the artificial emotion which 
bore the same relation to piety which the enthusiasm 
of the Knight of La Mancha bore to true chivalry. 
Philip himself in certain aspects of his character was 
not unlike Don Quixote. He believed that he was 
divinely commissioned to extirpate the dragons and 
monsters of heresy. As the adventure with the en- 
chanted horse had been specially reserved for Don 
Quixote, so the ' Enterprise of England/ in the inflated 
language of the time, was said to have been reserved 
for Philip ; and as analogies are apt to complete them- 
selves, the short, good-humoured, and entirely incapable 
Medina Sidonia, who had been selected for Commander- 
in-Chief, had a certain resemblance to Sancho. The 
Duke of Medina had no ambition for such adventures ; 
he would have greatly preferred staying at home, and 
only consented to take the command out of a certain 
dog-like obedience to his master. The representatives 
of the imaginary powers had been called in to bring 
him to accept the dangerous responsibility. A pious 
hermit told him that he had been instructed by the 
Almighty to promise him victory. The Prioress of the 
Annunciata, Maria de la Visitacion, who had received 
the five wounds and was punished afterwards as a 
detected impostor, had seen Santiago and two angels 
smiting Drake and his unbelieving comrades, and she 
assured the Duke of glory in both worlds if he went. 
The Duke's experience of English Admirals had been, 
so far, not glorious to him at all. He had been in. 
command at Cadiz a year before when the English fleet 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 5 

sailed up the harbour, burnt eighteen large ships, and 
went off unf ought with, taking six more away with 
them. All Spain had cried shame and had called the 
Duke a coward, but Philip had refused to be displeased, 
and had deliberately chosen him for an undertaking far 
more arduous than the defence of a provincial port. 
On this April 25 he was to receive his commission, 
with the standard under which he was to go into 
action, and the Catholic Church was to celebrate the 
occasion with its imposing splendours and imperious 
solemnities. 

The Armada lay in the Tagus waiting the completion 
of the ceremony. It was the most powerful armament 
which had ever been collected in modern Europe, a 
hundred and thirty ships — great galleons from a thousand 
to thirteen hundred tons; galeasses rowed by three 
hundred slaves, carrying fifty guns; galleys almost as 
formidable, and other vessels, the best appointed which 
Spain and Italy could produce. They carried nine 
thousand seamen, seasoned mariners who had served in 
all parts of the world, and seventeen thousand soldiers, 
who were to join the Prince of Parma and assist in the 
conquest of England. Besides them were some hundreds 
of nobles and gentlemen who, with their servants and 
retinues, had volunteered for the new crusade, gallant, 
high-spirited youths, quite ready to fight with Satan 
himself in the cause of Spain and Holy Church. In 
them all was a fine profession of enthusiasm — qualified, 
indeed, among the seamen by a demand for wages in 
advance, and a tendency to desert when they received 



6 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

them. But a regiment of priests dispersed through the 
various squadrons kept alive in most the sense that 
they were going on the most glorious expedition ever 
undertaken by man. 

The standard which was to be presented itself indi- 
cated the sacred character of the war. Into the Royal 
Arms of Spain there had been introduced as supporters 
on one side Christ on the Cross, on the other the Virgin 
mother; and on the scroll below was written : 'Exsurge 
Deus et vindica causam tuam,' 'Arise, Lord, and 
avenge thy cause.' ' Philip, by the grace of God King 
of Castile, of Leon, of Aragon, the Two Sicilies, Jeru- 
salem, Portugal, Navarre, Granada, Toledo, Valencia, 
Gallicia, Majorca, Sardinia, Cordova, Corsica, Murcia, 
Jaen, Algarves, Algesiras, Gibraltar, the Canary Islands, 
the East and West Indies, the Isles and Continents of 
the Ocean; Archduke of Austria, Duke of Burgund}^, 
of Brabant and Milan, Count of Hapsburgh, Count of 
Flanders, Tirol, and Barcelona; Lord of Biscay and 
Molina,' &c. ; the monarch, in short, whose name was 
swathed in these innumerable titles, had determined to 
commit the sacred banner to his well-beloved Don 
Alonzo de Guzman, surnamed El Bueno, or the Good, 
and under its folds to sweep the ocean clear of the 
piratical squadrons of the English Queen. The scene 
was the great metropolitan church of Lisbon, the Iglesia 
Major. It was six o'clock in the morning ; streets and 
squares were lined with troops who had been landed 
from the ships. The King was represented by his 
nephew, the Cardinal Archduke, who was Viceroy of 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 7 

Portugal. The Viceroy rode out of the Palace with the 
Duke on his right hand, followed by the gentlemen 
adventurers of the expedition in their splendid dresses. 
At the church they were received by the Archbishop, 
The standard was placed on the altar. Mass was sung. 
The Viceroy then led the Duke up the altar steps, lifted 
a fold of the standard and placed it in his hands, while, 
as the signal was passed outside, the ships in the river 
and the troops in the streets fired a salute — 'una 
pequena salva,' a small one, for powder was scarce and 
there was none to waste. The scene was not impres- 
sive; and the effect was frittered away in a complexity 
of details. The Archbishop took the Holy Sacrament 
and passed out of the church, followed by a stream of 
monks and secular clergy. The Archduke and the 
newly-made Admiral went after them, the standard 
being borne by the Duke's cousin, Don Luis of Cordova, 
who was to accompany him to England. In this order 
they crossed the great square to the Dominican Con- 
vent, where the scene in the Iglesia Major was repeated. 
The Dominicans received the procession at the door. 
The standard was again laid on the altar, this time by 
the Duke of Medina himself, as if to signify the con- 
secration of his own person to the service of the beings 
whose forms were embroidered upon it. The religions 
part of the transaction finished, they returned to the 
Palace, and stood on the marble stairs while the troops 
fired a second volley. The men were then marched to 
their boats, with an eye on them to see that none 
deserted, and His Royal Highness and the Captain- 



8 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA, 

General of the Ocean, as the Duke was now entitled, 
went in to breakfast. 

The presentation had wanted dignity and perhaps 
seriousness. There was no spontaneous enthusiasm. 
The Portuguese aristocracy were pointedly absent, and 
the effect was rather of some artificial display got up 
by the clergy and the Government. And yet the 
expedition of which this scene was the preliminary had 
for sixty years been the dream of Catholic piety, and 
the discharge at last of a duty with which the Spanish 
nation appeared to be peculiarly charged. The "Reform- 
ation in England had commenced with the divorce of a 
Spanish Princess. Half the English nation had been on 
Catherine's side and had invited Philip's father to send 
troops to help them to maintain her. As the quarrel 
deepened, and England became the stronghold of heresy, 
the English Catholics, the Popes, the clergy universally 
had entreated Charles, and Philip after him, to strike 
at the heart of the mischief and take a step which, if 
successful, would end the Protestant rebellion and give 
peace to Europe. The great Emperor and Philip too 
had listened reluctantly. Rulers responsible for the 
administration of kingdoms do not willingly encourage 
subjects in rebellion, even under the plea of religion. 
The divorce of Catherine had been an affront to Charles 
the Fifth and to Spain, yet it was not held to be a 
sufficient ground for war, and Philip had resisted for a 
quarter of a century the supplications of the suffering 
saints to deliver them from the tyranny of Elizabeth. 
It was an age of revolt against established authority. 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 9 

New ideas, new obligations of duty were shaking 
mankind. Obedience to God was held as superior to 
obedience to man; while each man was forming for 
himself his own conception of what God required of 
him. The intellect of Europe was outgrowing its creed. 
Part of the world had discovered that doctrines and 
practices which had lasted for fifteen hundred years 
were false and idolatrous. The other and larger part 
called the dissentients rebels and children of the Devil, 
and set to work to burn and kill them. At such times 
kings and princes have enough to do to maintain order 
in their own dominions, and even when they are of 
opposite sides have a common interest in maintaining 
the principle of authority. Nor when the Pope himself 
spoke on the Catholic side were Catholic princes com- 
pletely obedient. For the Pope's pretensions to deprive 
kings and dispose of kingdoms were only believed in by 
the clergy. No secular sovereign in Europe admitted 
a right which reduced him to the position of a Pope's 
vassal. Philip held that he sufficiently discharged his 
own duties in repressing heresy among his own subjects 
without interfering with his neighbours. Elizabeth was 
as little inclined to help Dutch and French and Scotch 
Calvinists. Yet the power of princes, even in the six- 
teenth century, was limited, and it rested after all on 
the goodwill of their own people. Common sympathies 
bound Catholics to Catholics and Protestants to Pro- 
testants, and every country in Europe became a caldron 
of intrigue and conspiracy. Catholics disclaimed allegi- 
ance to Protestant sovereigns, Protestants in Catholic 



io THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

countries looked to their fellow-religionists elsewhere to 
save them from stake and sword, and thus between all 
parties, in one form or another, there were perpetual 
collisions, which the forbearance of statesmen alone 
prevented from breaking out into universal war. 

Complete forbearance was not possible. Community 
of creed was a real bond which could not be ignored, 
nor in the general uncertainty could princes afford to 
reject absolutely and entirely the overtures made to 
them by each other's subjects. When they could not 
assist they were obliged to humour and encourage. 
Charles the Fifth refused to go to war to enforce the 
sentence of Home upon Henry the Eighth, but he 
allowed his ambassadors to thank and stimulate 
Catherine's English friends. Philip was honestly un- 
willing to draw the sword against his sister-in-law, 
Elizabeth ; but he was the secular head of Catholic 
Christendom, bound to the maintenance of the faith. 
He had been titular King of England, and to him the 
English Catholics naturally looked as their protector. 
He had to permit his De Quadras and his Mendozas to 
intrigue with disaffection, to organise rebellion, and, if 
other- means failed, to encourage the Queen's assassina- 
tion. To kill dangerous or mischievous individuals was 
held permissible as an alternative for war, or as a means 
of ending disturbance. It was approved of even by Sir 
Thomas More in his Utopia. William the Silent was 
murdered in the Catholic interest. Henri Quatre was 
murdered in the Catholic interest, and any one who 
would do the same to the English Jezebel would be 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. u 

counted to have done good service. Elizabeth had to 
defend herself with such resources as she possessed. 
She could not afford to demand open satisfaction ; but 
she could send secret help to the Prince of Orange ; she 
could allow her privateers to seize Spanish treasures on 
the high seas or plunder Philip's West Indian cities. 
She could execute the traitorous priests who were found 
teacjring rebellion in England. Philip in return could 
let the Inquisition burn English sailors as heretics when 
they could catch them. And thus the two nations had 
drifted on, still nominally at peace, and each unwilling 
to declare open war ; but peace each year had become 
more difficult to preserve, and Philip was driven on by 
the necessities of things to some open and decided 
action. The fate of the Reformation in Europe turned 
on the event of a conflict between Spain and England. 
Were England conquered and recovered to the Papacy, 
it was believed universally that first the Low Countries 
and then Germany would be obliged to submit. 

Several times a Catholic invasion of England had 
been distinctly contemplated. The Duke of Alva was 
to have tried it. Don John of Austria was to have 
tried it. The Duke of Guise was to have tried it. 
The nearest and latest occasion had been after the 
Conquest of Portugal and the great defeat of the 
French at the Azores in 1583. The Spanish Navy 
was then in splendid condition, excited by a brilliant 
victory, and led by an officer of real distinction, Alonzo 
de Bazan, Marques de Santa Cruz. A few English 
privateers had been in the defeated fleet at the Battle 



12 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

of Terceira ; and Santa Cruz, with the other naval 
commanders, was eager to follow up his success and 
avenge the insults which had been offered for so many 
years to the Spanish flag by the English corsairs. 
France, like all Northern Europe, was torn into factions. 
The Valois princes were Liberal and anti-Spanish. 
The House of Guise was fanatically Catholic, and too 
powerful for the Crown to control. Santa Cruz was a 
diplomatist as well as a seaman. He had his corre- 
spondents in England. In Guise he had a friend and 
confederate. The plan of action had been secretly 
arranged. One of the many plots was formed for the 
murder of Elizabeth. Santa Cruz and the Spanish 
Navy were to hold the Channel. Guise was to cross 
under their protection and land an army in Sussex. 
The Catholics were to rise, set free Mary Stuart, and 
make her Queen. This was the scheme. The fleet 
was ready. Guise was ready; and only Philip's per- 
mission was waited for. Santa Cruz was a rough old 
sailor, turned of seventy, who meant what he said and 
spoke his mind plainly. Like his countrymen gener- 
ally, he was tired of seeing his master for ever halting 
on his leaden foot (pie de plomo) ; and on August 9, 
1583, while still at the Azores, he wrote to stimulate 
him to follow up his success by still more splendid 
achievement. Philip was now master of the Portuguese 
Empire. He (Santa Cruz) was prepared, if allowed, to 
add England to his dominions. The Low Countries 
would then surrender, and the Jezebel who had wrought 
so much evil in the world would meet her deserts. 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 13 

Now was the time. The troops were ready, the 
fleet was in high condition. Philip talked of expense 
and difficulty. If difficulty was an objection, the bold 
admiral said that nothing grand could ever be achieved ; 
and for money, great princes could find money if they 
wished. The King should have faith in God, whose 
work he would be doing ; and if he was himself per- 
mitted to try, he promised that he would have as good 
success as in his other enterprises. 

Charles the Fifth, among his other legacies to his 
son, had left him instructions to distrust France and to 
preserve the English alliance. The passionate Catholics 
had assured Philip over and over again that the way to 
keep England was to restore the faith. But plot after 
plot had failed, Elizabeth was still sovereign, and 
Catholic conspiracies so far had only brought their 
leaders to the scaffold. Mary Stuart was a true 
believer, but she was herself half a Frenchwoman, and 
Guise's father had defeated Philip's father at Mete/ 
and Guise and Mary masters of France and England 
both was a perilous possibility. Philip did not assent; 
he did not refuse. He thanked Santa Cruz for his 
zeal, but said that he must still wait a little and watch. 
His waiting did not serve to clear his way. Elizabeth 
discovered what had been designed for her, and as a 
return Sir Francis Drake sacked St. Domingo and 
Carthagena. More than that, she had sent open help 
to his insurgent provinces, and had taken charge, with 
the consent of the Hollanders, of Flushing and Brill. 
Santa Cruz could not but admire the daring of Drake 



14 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

and the genius of the English Queen. They were 
acting while his own master was asleep. He tried 
again to rouse him. The Queen, he said, had made 
herself a name in the world. She had enriched her 
own subjects out of Spanish spoil. In a single month 
they had taken a million and a half of ducats. 
Defensive war was always a failure. Once more the 
opportunity was his own. France was paralysed, and 
Elizabeth, though strong abroad, was weak at home, 
through the disaffection of the Catholics. To delay 
longer would be to see England grow into a power 
which he would be unable to deai with. Spain would 
decline, and would lose in mere money more than four 
times the cost of war. 1 

This time Philip listened more seriously. Before, 
he had been invited to act with the Duke of Guise, and 
Guise was to have the spoils. Now, at any rate, the 
lead in the campaign was to be his own. He bade 
Santa Cruz send him a plan of operations and a calcula- 
tion in detail of the ships and stores which would be 
required. He made him Lord High Admiral, com- 
missioned him to collect squadrons at Cadiz and Lisbon, 
take them to sea, and act against the English as he saw 
occasion. Santa Cruz would probably have been allowed 
his way to do what he pleased in the following year but 
for a new complication, which threw Philip again into 
perplexity. The object of any enterprise led by Santa 
Cruz would have been the execution of the Bull of 



Santa Cruz to Philip the Second, January 13, 1586. 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 15 

Pope Pius, the dethronement of Elizabeth, and the 
transference of the crown to Mary Stuart, who, if placed 
on the throne by Spanish arms alone, might be relied 
on to be true to Spanish interests. Wearied out with 
Mary's perpetual plots, Elizabeth, when Santa Cruz's 
preparations were far advanced, sent her to the scaffold, 
and the blow of the axe which ended her disconcerted 
every arrangement which had been made. There was 
no longer a Catholic successor in England to whom the 
crown could go on Elizabeth's deposition, and it was 
useless to send an army to conquer the country till 
some purpose could be formed for disposing of it after- 
wards. Philip had been called King of England once. 
He was of the blood of the House of Lancaster. He 
thought, naturally, that if he was to do the work, to 
him the prize should belong. Unfortunately, the rest 
of the world claimed a voice in the matter. France 
would certainly be hostile. The English Catholics 
were divided. The Pope himself, when consulted, refused 
his assent. As Pope Sextus the Fifth, he was bound to 
desire the reduction of a rebellious island ; as an Italian 
prince, he had no wish to see another wealthy kingdom 
added to the enormous empire of Spain. Mary Stuart's 
son was natural heir. He was a Protestant, but grati- 
tude might convert him. At any rate, Philip was not 
to take Elizabeth's place. Sextus was to have given a 
million crowns to the cost of the armament ; he did not 
directly withdraw his promise, but he haggled with the 
Spanish Ambassador at the Holy See. He affected to 
doubt the possibility of Philip's success, and even his 



1 6 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

personal sincerity. He declined to advance a ducat till 
a Spanish army was actually on English soil. The 
Prince of Parma, who was to cross from Flanders and 
conduct the campaign in England itself, was diffident, 
if not unwilling ; and Philip had to feel that even the 
successful occupation of London might prove the begin- 
ning of greater troubles. He had been driven forward 
himself against his inclination. The chief movers in 
the enterprise, those who had fed the fire of religions 
animosity through Europe, and prevented a rational 
arrangement between the Spanish and English nations, 
were the Society of Jesus, those members of it espe- 
cially who had been bred at Oxford in the Anglican 
Church, and hated it with the frenzy of renegades. 
From them came the endless conspiracies which Spain 
was forced to countenance, and the consequent severities 
of the English Government, which they shrieked in 
Philip's ears ; and Philip, half a bigot and half a 
cautious statesman, wavered between two policies till 
fate decided for him. Both on Philip's part and on 
Elizabeth's part there was a desire for peace if peace 
could be had. Philip was weary of the long struggle in 
the Low Countries, which threatened to be endless if 
Elizabeth supported it. Elizabeth herself wished to 
be left in quiet, relieved of the necessity of supporting 
insurgent Protestants and hanging traitorous priests. 
An arrangement was possible, based on principles of 
general toleration. 

The Pope was right in not wholly trusting Philip. 
The Spanish King was willing to agree that England 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 17 

should remain Protestant if England wished it, pro- 
vided the Catholics were allowed the free exercise of 
their own religion, and provided Elizabeth would call 
in her privateers, surrender to him the towns which she 
held in Holland, and abandon her alliance with the 
Dutch States. Elizabeth was perfectly ready to tolerate 
Catholic worship if the Catholics would cease their 
plots against her and Spain would cease to encourage 
them. It was true that Flushing and Brill had been 
trusted to her charge by the States, and that if she 
withdrew her garrison she was bound in honour to 
replace them in the States' hands. But she regarded 
the revolt of the Low Countries as only justified by 
the atrocities of the Blood Council and the Inquisition. 
If she could secure for the Dutch Confederation the 
same toleration which she was willing herself to concede 
to the English Catholics, she might feel her honour to 
be acquitted sufficiently, and might properly surrender 
to Philip towns which really were his own. Here only, 
so far as the two sovereigns were concerned, the diffi- 
culty lay. Philip held himself bound by duty to allow 
no liberty of religion among his own subjects. On the 
other hand, if peace was made the Spanish garrisons 
were to be withdrawn from the Low Countries; the 
Executive Government would be left in the hands of 
the States themselves, who could be as tolerant practi- 
cally as they pleased. On these terms it was certain 
that a general pacification was within reach. The 
Prince of Parma strongly advised it. Philip himself 
wished for it. Half Elizabeth's Council recommended 



18 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA, 

it, and she herself wished for it. Unless Catholics and 
Protestants intended to fight till one or the other was 
exterminated, they must come to some such terms at 
last; and if at last, why not at once? With this 
purpose a conference was being held at Ostend between 
Elizabeth's and Parma's commissioners. The terms 
were rational. The principal parties, it is now possible 
to see — even Philip himself — were sincere about it. 
How long the terms of such a peace would have lasted, 
with the theological furnace at such a heat, may be 
fairly questioned. Bigotry and freedom of thought had 
two centuries of battle still before them till it could be 
seen which was to prevail. But an arrangement might 
then have been come to at Ostend, in the winter of 
1587-8, which would have lasted Philip's and Elizabeth's 
lifetime, could either party have trusted the other. In 
both countries there was a fighting party and a peace 
party. In England it was said that the negotiations 
were a fraud, designed only to induce Elizabeth to relax 
her preparations for defence. In Spain it was urged 
that the larger and more menacing the force which 
could be collected, the more inclined Elizabeth would 
be to listen to reason ; while Elizabeth had to show on 
her part that frightened she was not, and that if Philip 
preferred war she had no objection. The bolder her 
bearing, the more likely she would be to secure fair 
terms for the Hollanders. 

The preparations at Cadiz and Lisbon were no secret. 
All Europe was talking of the enormous armament 
which Spain was preparing, and which Santa Cruz was 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 19 

to convoy to the English Channel. Both the Tagus 
and Cadiz Harbour were reported to be crowded with 
ships, though as yet unprovided with crews for them. 
With some misgivings, but in one of her bolder 
moments, the Queen in the spring of 1587 allowed 
Drake to take a flying squadron with him down the 
Spanish coast. She hung about his neck a second in 
command to limit his movements ; but Drake took 
his own way, leaving his vice-admiral to go home 
and complain. He sailed into Cadiz Harbour, burnt 
eighteen galleons which were lying there, and, remain- 
ing leisurely till he had finished his work, sailed away, 
intending to repeat the operation at Lisbon. It might 
have been done with the same ease. The English 
squadron lay at the mouth of the river within sight of 
Santa Cruz, and the great admiral had to sit still and 
fume, unable to go out and meet him porfalta de gente 
— for want of sailors to man his galleons. Drake might 
have gone in and burnt them all, and would have done 
it had not Elizabeth felt that he had accomplished 
enough, and that the negotiations would be broken off 
if he worked more destruction. He had singed the 
King's beard, as he called it ; and the King, though 
patient of affronts, was moved to a passing emotion. 
Seamen and soldiers were hurried down to the Taoms. 
Orders were sent to the Admiral to put to sea at once 
and chase the English off the shore. But Philip, too, 
on his side was afraid of Santa Cruz's too great audacity. 
He, too, did not wish for a collision which might make 
peace impossible. Another order followed. The fleet 



20 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

was to stay where it was and to continue its preparations. 
It was to wait till the next spring, when the enterprise 
should be undertaken in earnest if the peace conference 
at Ostend should fail in finding a conclusion. 

Thus the winter drove through. Peace perhaps was 
not really possible, however sincerely the high contract- 
ing parties might themselves desire it. Public opinion 
in Spain would have compelled Philip to leave the 
conqueror of Terceira in command of the expedition. 
Santa Cruz would have sailed in March for the English 
Channel, supported by officers whom he had himself 
trained ; and, although the Armada might still have 
failed, history would have had another tale to tell of its 
exploits and its fate. But a visible coldness had grown 
up between the King and the Admiral. Philip, like 
many men of small minds raised into great positions, 
had supreme confidence in his own powers of manage- 
ment. He chose to regulate everything, to the diet 
and daily habits of every sailor and soldier on board. 
He intended to direct and limit the action of the Armada 
even when out and gone to its work. He had settled 
perhaps in his own mind that, since he could not him- 
self be King of England, the happiest result for him 
would be to leave Elizabeth where she was, reduced to 
the condition of his vassal, which she would become if 
she consented to his terms ; and with the presence of 
an overpowering fleet in the Channel, a moderate but 
not too excessive use of force, an avoidance of extreme 
and violent measures, which would make the strife 
internecine and make an arrangement hopeless, he con- 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 21 

ceived that he could bring Elizabeth to her knees. For 
such a purpose Santa Cruz was not the most promising 
instrument; he required some one of more malleable 
material who would obey his own instructions, and would 
not be led either by his own ambition or the enthusiasm 
and daring of his officers into desperate adventures. It 
was probably, therefore, rather to his relief than regret 
that in February, when the Armada was almost ready 
to sail, the old Admiral died at Lisbon. Santa Cruz 
was seventy-three years old. He had seen fifty years 
of service. Spanish tradition, mourning at the fatal 
consequence, said afterwards that he had been broken- 
hearted at the King's hesitation. Anxiety for the honour 
of his country might have worn out a younger man. 
He came to his end, and with him went the only chance 
of a successful issue of the expedition. He was proud 
of his country, which he saw that Philip was degrading. 
The invasion of England had been his dream for years, 
and he had correspondents of his own in England and 
Ireland. He was the ablest seaman that Spain possessed, 
and had studied long the problems with which he would 
have had to deal. Doubtless he had left men behind 
among those who had served under him who could have 
taken his place, and have done almost as well. But 
Philip had determined that, since the experiment was 
to be made, he would himself control it from his room 
in the Escurial, and in his choice of Santa Cruz's suc- 
cessor he showed that naval capacity and patriotic 
enthusiasm were the last qualities for which he was 
looking. 



22 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

Don Alonzo de Guzman, Duke of Medina Sidonia, 
was tbe richest peer in Spain. He was now thirty-eight 
years old, and his experience as a public man was limited 
to his failure to defend Cadiz agaiust Drake. He was 
a short, broad-shouldered, olive-complexioned man, said 
to be a good rider ; but, if his wife was to be believed, 
he was of all men in Spain the least fitted to be trusted 
with the conduct of any critical undertaking. The 
Duchess, Dona Ana de Mendoza, was the daughter of 
Philip's Minister, Kuy Gomez, and of the celebrated 
Princess of Eboli, whom later scandal called Philip's 
mistress, and whose attractions were supposed to have 
influenced Philip in favour of her son-in-law. Royal 
scandals are dreary subjects. When they are once 
uttered the stain is indelible, for every one likes to 
believe them. The only contemporary witness for the 
amours of Philip and the Princess of Eboli is Antonio 
Perez, who, by his own confession, was a scoundrel who 
deserved the gallows. Something is known at last of 
the history of the lady. If there was a woman in Spain 
whom Philip detested, it was the wife of Ruy Gomez. 
If there was a man whom the Princess despised, it was 
the watery-blooded King. An intrigue between a wild 
cat of the mountain and a narrow-minded, conscientious 
sheep-dog would be about as probable as a love-affair 
between Philip and the Princess of Eboli ; and at the 
time of her son-in-law's appointment she was locked up 
in a castle in defiant disgrace. The Duke had been 
married to her daughter when he was twenty-two and 
his bride was eleven, and Dona Ana, after sixteen years' 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 23 

experience of him, had observed to her friends that he 
was well enough in his own house among persons who 
did not know what he was ; but that if he was employed 
on business of State the world would discover to its cost 
his real character. That such a man should have been 
chosen to succeed Alonzo de Bazan astonished every 
one. A commander of Gold, it was said, was taking- 
the place of a commander of Iron. The choice was 
known to Santa Cruz while he still breathed, and did 
not comfort him in his departure. 

The most astonished of all, when he learnt the 
honour which was intended for him, was the Duke 
himself, and he drew a picture of his own incapacity as 
simple as Sancho'swhen appointed to govern his island. 

' My health is bad,' he wrote to Philip's secretary, 
' and from my small experience of the water I know 
that I am always sea-sick. I have no money which I 
can spare. I owe a million ducats, and I have not a 
real to spend on my outfit. The expedition is on such 
a scale and the object is of such high importance that 
the person at the head of it ought to understand 
navigation and sea-fighting, and I know nothing of 
either. I have not one of those essential qualifications. 
I have no acquaintances among the officers who are to 
serve under me. Santa Cruz had information about 
the state of things in England ; I have none. Were I 
competent otherwise, I should have to act in the dark 
by the opinion of others, and I cannot tell to whom I 
may trust. The Adelantado of Castile would do better 
than I. Our Lord would help him, for he is a good 



24 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

Christian and has fought in naval battles. If you send 
me, depend upon it, I shall have a bad account to 
render of my trust. 5 1 

The Duchess, perhaps, guided her husband's hand 
when he wrote so faithful an account of himself. But 
his vanity was flattered. Philip persisted that he must 
go. He and only he would answer the purpose in view, 
so he allowed himself to be persuaded. 

' Since your Majesty still desires it, after my con- 
fession of incompetence/ he wrote to Philip, f I will try 
to deserve your confidence. As I shall be doing God's 
work, I may hope that He will help me/ 

Philip gratefully replied : ' You are sacrificing your- 
self for God's service and mine. I am so anxious, that 
if I was less occupied at home I would accompany the 
fleet myself, and I should be certain that all would 
go well. Take heart ; you have now an opportunity 
of showing the extraordinary qualities which God, the 
author of all good, has been pleased to bestow upon 
you. Happen what may, I charge myself with the care 
of your children. If you fail, you fail ; but the cause 
being the cause of God, you will not fail.' 

Thus the Duke was to command the Armada and 
to sail at the earliest possible moment, for the com- 
missioners were sitting at Ostend, and his presence in 
the Channel was of pressing consequence. Santa Cruz 
besides had fixed on the end of March as the latest 



1 Medina Sidonia to Secretary Idiaquez, Feb. 16, 1588. Duro, vol. 
i. p. 414. 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 25 

date for the departure, on account of the north winds 
which later in the season blow down the coast of 
Portugal. The Duke at the time of his nomination 
was at his house at San Lucar. He was directed to 
repair at once to Lisbon, where his commission would 
reach him. An experienced but cautious Admiral, 
Don Diesfo Flores De Valdez, was assigned to him as 
nautical adviser, and Philip proceeded to inflict upon 
him a series of instructions and advice as wise and 
foolish as those with which Don Quixote furnished his 
squire. Every day brought fresh letters as suggestions 
rose in what Philip called his mind. Nothing was too 
trifling for his notice, nothing was to be left to the 
Duke's discretion which could possibly be provided for. 
In a secret despatch to the Prince of Parma, the King 
revealed alike his expectations and his wishes. He 
trusted that the appearance of the Armada and some 
moderate victory over the English fleet would force 
Elizabeth to an agreement. If the Catholic religion 
could be tolerated in England, and if Flushing and Brill 
were given up to him, he said that he was prepared to 
be satisfied. To Medina Sidonia he reported as his 
latest advice from England that the Queen was 
inclining to the treaty, but was dissuaded by Leicester 
and Walsingham, and he gave him a list of the English 
forces which he might expect to meet, which was 
tolerably accurate and far inferior to his own. 

So far Philip wrote like a responsible and sensible 
prince, but the smallest thing and the largest seemed 
to occupy him equally. He directed the Duke to 



26 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

provide himself with competent Channel pilots, as if 
this was a point which might be overlooked. He laid 
down regulations for the health of the crews, he fixed 
himself the allowances of biscuit and wine, salt fish and 
bacon. Beyond all, he charged the Duke to attend to 
their morals. They were in the service df the Lord, 
and the Lord must not be offended by the faults of 
His instruments. The clergy throughout Spain were 
praying for them and would continue to pray, but 
soldiers and sailors must do their part and live like 
Christians. They must not swear; they must not 
gamble, which led to swearing. If they used low 
language God would be displeased. Every man before 
he embarked must confess and commend himself to the 
Lord. Especially and pre-eminently, loose women 
must be kept away, and if any member of the ex- 
pedition fell into the pccado nefando he must be 
chastised to the example of the rest. This was well 
enough also, but from morals the King went next to 
naval details, of which he could know nothing. He 
had heard, he said, that the gentlemen adventurers 
wanted state-rooms and private berths. It would 
encumber the ships, and the Duke was not to allow it. 
As the Duke was ignorant of navigation, the King held 
himself competent to instruct. He was to make 
straight for the English Channel, advance to the North 
Foreland, and put himself in communication with 
Parma. If foul weather came and the ships were 
scattered, they were to collect again, first at Finisterre, 
and then at the Scilly Isles. In the Channel he must 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 27 

keep on the English side, because the water was deeper 
there. Elizabeth's fleet, Philip understood, was divided, 
part being under Drake at Plymouth, and part in the 
Straits of Dover. If the Duke fell in with Drake he 
was to take no notice of him unless he was attacked, 
and was to keep on his coarse. If he found the two 
squadrons united, he would still be in superior force 
and might join battle, being careful to keep to 
windward. 

There were limits even to Philip's confidence in 
his ability to guide. He admitted that he could not 
direct the Duke specifically how to form the ships for 
an engagement. Time and opportunity would have 
to determine. 'Only,' he said, 'omit no advantage, 
and so handle the fleet that one part shall support^ 
another. The enemy will try to fight at a distance 
with his guns. You will endeavour to close. You 
will observe that their practice is to shoot low into 
the hulls rather than into the rigging. You will find 
how to deal with this. Keep your vessels together, 
allow none to stray or go in advance. Do not let 
them hurry in pursuit of prizes after a victory. This 
fault has often caused disaster both on sea and land. 
Conquer first, and then you will have spoil enough. 
The Council of War will order the distribution of it. 
What I am now saying implies that a battle will have 
to be fought ; but if the enemy can be got rid of with- 
out an action, so much the better. The effect will be 
produced without loss to yourself. Should the Prince 
be able to cross, you will remain with the Armada 



28 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

at the mouth of the Thames, lending such assistance 
as you can. Consult with the Prince, and land none 
of your forces without his approval. Kemember that 
your only business is to fight at sea. Differences 
between leaders are injurious, and always to be avoided. 
I am confident that you will co-operate cordially with 
the Prince as my service demands ; but I must charge 
you to follow these injunctions of mine strictly 
according to the exact words. I have similarly 
directed the Prince on his own conduct, and if you two 
acting together can succeed in your undertaking, there 
will be honour to spare for both of you. You will 
remain at the Thames' mouth till the work is done. 
You may then, if the Prince approves, take in hand 
Ireland, in which case you will leave your Spanish 
troops with him and exchange them for Germans and 
Italians. You will be careful in what you spend. You 
know how costly the Armada has been to me. You 
will also see that I am not cheated in the muster rolls, 
and that the provisions are sound and sufficient. You 
will watch the conduct of the officers and keep them 
attentive to their duties. This is all which occurs to 
me at present. I must leave the rest to your own care 
and prudence, and for any further advices which I may 
have to send you.' 1 

Much of all this was no doubt reasonable and true. 
But Generals chosen to conduct great enterprises do 



1 Philip the Second to the Duke of Medina Sidonia, April I. Duro, 
vol. ii. pp. 5— 13. 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA, 29 

not require to be taught the elements of their duties. 
That Philip thought it necessary to write all these 
details was characteristic both of himself and of the 
Duke. But it was characteristic of Philip also, that 
he had not made up his mind what the fleet was after 
all to do, or what he himself wished it to do. The first 
set of instructions was followed by a second, addressed 
both to the Duke and the Prince of Parma. The 
original purpose was that the fleet should make its way 
to the North Foreland. Parma was to use its presence 
in the Channel, to cross at once with the army, advance 
to London and take possession of the Government, 
where, in conjunction with Cardinal Allen and the 
Catholic Nobles, he was to restore the authority of the 
Roman Church. This, however, implied that the 
English squadrons should have been first destroyed, or 
driven off the sea into their harbours. It was possible, 
as Philip foresaw, that the victory at sea might be less 
complete. He assumed that the English would be 
overmatched, but they were bold and skilful, and, even 
if defeated, might be left in a condition to be trouble- 
some. The passage of the army might in that case be 
dangerous; and Parma was left on his own responsi- 
bility to resume the negotiations at Ostend. Medina 
Sidonia was to gain and fortify the Isle of Wight, and 
the presence of the Armada in the Solent was to be 
used as an instrument to extort favourable terms from 
Elizabeth's Government. It would be no longer 
possible to demand the restoration of Catholicism in 
England, but the free exercise of the Catholic religion 



30 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

was to be insisted on. As the first point, and for the 
sake of the toleration of the Catholics, Philip would 
be willing to abandon his claim to compensation for the 
plundering expeditions of Francis Drake. The next 
condition was to be the restoration to the King of the 
towns which Elizabeth held in the Low Countries. It 
was possible that, before consenting, the Queen would 
demand the same liberty of religion for the Protestants 
of the Low Countries which she was required to grant 
to her own Catholics. To this, however, Parma was in 
no case to consent. The English might argue that the 
Huguenots were tolerated under the Edicts in France. 
Parma was to answer that the example was not to the 
point, that the King, at any rate, would not give way. 
The Isle of Wight would be in his own hands. The 
fleet would be safe in the Solent. Other fortresses 
could be seized along the coast, and Elizabeth would 
be forced to consent to a peace, under which she would 
be virtually reduced into the position of Philip's vassal. 

Accidents, however, might happen, and the Prince 
of Parma also was perplexed with minute conditional 
instructions. 

Disaster it is evident that Philip did not anticipate. 
Something less than complete success he probably did 
anticipate, and on the whole might prefer it. Satisfied 
with having provided for all contingencies, he was now 
only anxious to see the Armada on its way. The nuns 
and hermits, meanwhile, had removed the alarms of 
Medina Sidonia, had convinced him that God could not 
neglect a business in which He was so peculiarly con- 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 31 

cerned, and that, in the fine language of theological 
knight-errantry, the service which he was to execute 
had been specially reserved by Providence for the 
King to achieve. 1 

Such thoughts and such experiences were doubtless 
indications of a high-wrought frame of mind ; but men 
may dwell too exclusively on the conviction that God 
is on their side, and perhaps forget that God will not 
be found there if they neglect to do their own parts. 
While the priests were praying and the King and the 
Duke were calculating on the Divine assistance, they 
were omitting, all of them, the most obvious pre- 
cautions by which moderate success could be looked 
for. Santa Cruz had reported that the fleet was almost 
ready to sail. The stores of provisions had been laid 
in while he was still alive, and the water-casks had 
been filled. But after his death there was no responsible 
person left in Lisbon to see to anything. Great naval 
expeditions were nothing new in Spain. The West 
Indies and Mexico and Peru had not been' conquered 
by men in their sleep ; and what ships and ships' crews 
required for dangerous voyages was as well understood 
at Lisbon and Cadiz as in any harbour in the world. 
But the Armada was surrounded by a halo of devout 
imagination which seemed to paralyse all ordinary 
sense. It was to have sailed in March, but, even to 
the inexperienced eye of Medina Sidonia when he 



1 *Y que lo tiene guardado a 
V. Md. para que por su mano y 
con su gran zelo y cliristiandad, se 



reduzca aquel Regno al gremio y 
obediencia de su Iglesia.' Medina 
Sidonia to Philip, April 11. 



32 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

arrived at his command, the inadequacy of the pre- 
parations was too obvious. The casks of salt meat 
were found to be putrefying; the water in the tanks 
had not been renewed, and had stood for weeks, grow- 
ing foul and poisonous under the hot Lisbon sun. Spare 
rope, spare spars, spare anchors — all were deficient. 
The powder-supply was short. The balls were short. 
The contractors had cheated as audaciously as if they 
had been mere heretics, and the soldiers and mariners 
so little liked the look of things that they were desert- 
ing in hundreds, while the muster- masters drew pay 
for the full numbers and kept it. Instead of sailing in 
March, as he had been ordered, the Duke was obliged 
to send to Madrid a long list of indispensable neces- 
saries, without which he could not sail at all. Nothing 
had been attended to save the state of the men's souls, 
about which the King had been so peculiarly anxious. 
They at any rate had been sent to confession, had 
received each his ticket certifying that he had been 
absolved and had duly commended himself to the Lord. 
The loose women had been sent away, the cards and 
dice prohibited, the moral instructions punctually com- 
plied with. All the rest had been left to chance and 
villainy. The short powder-supply was irremediable. 
The Duke purchased a few casks from merchant ships, 
but no more was to be had. For the rest, the King 
wrote letters, and the Duke, according to his own 
account, worked like a slave, and the worst defects 
were concealed if not supplied. Not, however, till the 
end of April were the conditions advanced sufficiently 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 33 

for the presentation of the standard, and even then the 
squadron from Andalusia had not arrived. 

All was finished at last, or at any rate seemed so. 
The six squadrons were assembled under their respective 
commanders. Men and officers were on board, and 
sailing orders, addressed to every member of the ex- 
pedition, were sent round, in the Duke's name, to the 
several ships, which, remembering the fate to which all 
these men were being consigned by their crusading 
enthusiasm, we cannot read without emotion. 

' From highest to lowest you are to understand the 
object of our expedition, which is to recover countries 
to the Church now oppressed by the enemies of the 
true faith. I therefore beseech you to remember your 
calling, so that God may be with us in what we do. 
I charge you, one and all, to abstain from profane oaths 
dishonouring to the names of our Lord, our Lady, and 
the Saints. All personal quarrels are to be suspended 
while the expedition lasts, and for a month after it is 
completed. Neglect of this will be held as treason. 
Each morning at sunrise the ship boys, according to 
custom, shall sing " Good Morrow " at the foot of the 
mainmast, 1 and at sunset the " Ave Maria." Since bad 
weather may interrupt the communications, the watch- 
woid is laid down for each day in the week : — Sunday, 
Jesus ; the days succeeding, the Holy Ghost, the Holy 
Trinity, Santiago, the Angels, All Saints, and our Lady. 



1 ' Los pajes, segmi es costmnbre, daran los buenos dias al pie del 
mastil major.' 



34 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

At sea, every evening, each ship shall pass with a 
salute under the lee of the Commander-in-Chief, and 
shall follow at night the light which he will carry in 
his stern.' 

So, as it were, singing its own dirge, the doomed 
Armada went upon its way, to encounter the arms and 
the genius of the new era, unequally matched with 
unbelievers. On May 14 it dropped down the river to 
Belem, and lay there waiting for a wind. A brief 
account may here be given of its composition and its 
chief leaders. The fleet consisted of a hundred and 
thirty ships. Seven of them were over a thousand 
tons and sixty-seven over five hundred. They carried 
two thousand five hundred guns, chiefly small, however 
—four, six, and nine-pounders. Spanish seamen under- 
stood little of gunnery. Their art in their sea-battles 
was to close and grapple and trust to their strength 
and courage in hand-to-hand fighting. Large for the 
time as the galleons were, they were still overcrowded. 
Soldiers, sailors, officers, volunteers, priests, surgeons, 
galley-slaves, amounted, according to the returns, to 
nearly thirty thousand men. The soldiers were the 
finest in Europe ; the seamen old trained hands, who 
had learnt their trade under Santa Cruz. They were 
divided into six squadrons, each with its Yice-Admiral 
and Capitana or flag-ship. The Duke carried his 
standard in the San Martin, of the squadron of Por- 
tugal, the finest vessel in the service, and, as the 
Spaniards thought, in the world. The other five, of 
Biscay, Castile, Andalusia, Guypuscoa, and the Levant, 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 35 

were led by distinguished officers. There was but one 
commander in the fleet entirely ignorant of his duties, 
though he, unfortunately, was Commander-in-Chief. 

As the names of these officers recur frequently in 
the account of what followed, some description may be 
given of each. 

The Vice- Admiral of the Biscay squadron was Juan 
Martinez de Recalde, a native of Bilbao, an old, battered 
sea- warrior, who had fought and served in all parts of 
the ocean. He knew Ireland ; he knew the Channel ; 
he had been in the great battle at Terceira, and in the 
opinion of the service was second only to Santa Cruz. 
His flagship was the Santa Ana, a galleon of eight 
hundred tons ; he sailed himself in the Gran Grin, of 
eleven hundred; so far fortunate, if any one in the 
expedition could be called fortunate, for the Santa 
Ana was disabled in a storm at the mouth of the 
Channel. 

The leaders of the squadrons of Castile and Anda- 
lusia were two cousins, Don Pedro and Don Diego de 
Valdez. Don Diego, whom Philip had chosen for the 
Duke's mentor, was famous as a naval architect, had 
been on exploring expeditions, and had made a certain 
reputation for himself. He was a jealous, suspicious, 
cautious kind of man, and Philip had a high opinion of 
him. Don Pedro was another of the heroes of Terceira, 
a rough, bold seaman, scarred in a hundred actions 
with English corsairs, and between the two kinsmen 
there was neither resemblance nor affection. Don 
Pedro's misfortune in the Channel, which will soon be 



36 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

heard of, brought him more honour than Don Diego 
earned by his timidity. He lived long after, and was 
for eight years Governor of Cuba, where the Castle of 
the Moro at Havannah still stands as his monument. 
Two other officers deserve peculiar mention : Miguel 
de Oquendo, who sailed in the Senora de la Rosa, of 
Guypuscoa, and Alonzo de Leyva, who had a ship of 
his own, the Rata Coronada. Oquendo's career had 
been singularly distinguished. He had been the terror 
of the Turks in the Mediterranean. At Terceira, at a 
critical point in the action, he had rescued Santa Cruz 
when four French vessels were alongside of him. He 
had himself captured the French Admiral's flagship, 
carrying her by boarding, and sending his own flag to 
her masthead above the smoke of the battle. He was 
an excellent seaman besides, and managed his ship, 
as was said, as easily as a horse. Alonzo de Leyva 
held no special command beyond his own vessel ; but 
he had been named by Philip to succeed Medina 
Sidonia in case of misadventure. With him, and 
under his special charge, were most of the high-born 
adventurous youths who had volunteered for the 
crusade. Neither he nor they were ever to see Spain 
again, but Spanish history ought not to forget him, 
and ought not to forget Oquendo. 

Of priests and friars there were a hundred and 
eighty ; of surgeons, doctors, and their assistants, in the 
entire fleet, not more than eighty-five. The numbers 
might have been reversed with advantage. Among the 
adventurers one only may be noted particularly, the 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 37 

poet Lope de Vega, then smarting from disappointment 
in a love-affair, and seeking new excitement. 

Meanwhile, the winds were unpropitious. For four- 
teen days the fleet lay at anchor at the mouth of the 
Tagus unable to get away. They weighed at last on 
May 28, and stood out to sea ; but a northerly breeze 
drove them to leeward, and they could make no pro- 
gress, while almost instantly on their sailing the state 
of the stores was brought to light. The water had 
been on board for four months ! the casks were leaking 
and what was left of it was unfit to drink. The pro- 
visions, salt meat, cheese, biscuit, were found to be half 
putrid, and a remarkable order was issued to serve out 
first what was in worse condition, that the supplies 
might hold out the longer. As the ships were to keep 
together, the course and speed were necessarily governed 
by those which sailed the worst. The galleons, high 
built, and with shallow draught of water, moved toler- 
ably before the wind, but were powerless to work 
against it. The north wind freshened. They were 
carried down as low as Cape St. Vincent, standing out 
and in, and losing ground on each tack. After a fort- 
night's labour they were only in the latitude of Lisbon 
again. Tenders were sent in every day to Philip, with 
an account of their progress. Instead of being in the 
mouth of the Channel, the Duke had to report that he 
could make no way at all, and, far worse than that, the 
entire ships' companies were on the way to being 
poisoned. Each provision cask which was opened was 
found worse than the last. The biscuit was mouldy, 



38 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

the meat and fish stinking, the water foul and breeding 
dysentery. The crews and companies were loud in 
complaint; the officers had lost heart, and the Duke, 
who at starting had been drawing pictures in his 
imagination of glorious victories, had already begun to 
lament his weakness in having accepted the command. 
He trusted God would help him, he said. He Wished 
no harm to any one. He had left his quiet, and his 
home, and his children, out of pure love to his Majesty, 
and he hoped his Majesty would remember it. 1 The 
state of the stores was so desperate, especially of the 
water, that it was held unsafe to proceed. The pilots 
said that they must put into some port for a fresh 
supply. The Duke feared that if he consented the men, 
in their present humour, would take the opportunity 
and desert. 

At length, on June 10, after three weeks of inef- 
fectual beating up and down, the wind shifted to the 
south-west, and the fleet could be laid upon its course. 
The anxiety was not much diminished. The salt meat, 
salt fish, and cheese were found so foul throughout that 
they were thrown overboard for fear of pestilence, and 
the rations were reduced to biscuit and weevils. A 
despatch was hurried off to Philip that fresh stores must 
instantly be sent out, or there would be serious disaster. 
The water was the worst of all, as when drunk it pro- 
duced instant diarrhoea. On June 13 matters mended 
a little. The weather had cooled. The south-west 



1 Medina Sidonia to Philip the Second, May 30. 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 39 

wind had brought rain. The ships could be aired and 
purified. They were then off Finisterre, and were on a 
straight course for the Channel. Philip's orders had 
been positive that they were not to delay anywhere, that 
they were to hurry on and must not separate. They 
had five hundred men, however, down with dysentery, 
and the number of sick was increasing with appalling 
rapidity. A council was held on board the San Martin, 
and the Admirals all agreed that go on they could not. 
Part of the fleet, at least, must make into Ferrol, land 
the sick, and bring off supplies. The Duke could not 
come to a resolution, but the winds and waves settled 
his uncertainties. On the 19th it came on to blow. 
The Duke, with the Portugal squadron, the galleys and 
the larger galleons, made in at once for Corunna, 
leaving the rest to follow, and was under shelter before 
the worst of the gale. The rest were caught outside 
and scattered. They came in as they could, most of 
them in the next few days, some dismasted, some leaking 
with strained timbers, the crews exhausted with illness ; 
but at the end of a week a third part of the Armada 
was still missing, and those which had reached the 
harbour were scarcely able to man their yards. A 
hospital had to be established on shore. The tendency 
to desert had become so general that the landing-places 
were occupied with bodies of soldiers. A despatch went 
off to the Escurial, with a despairing letter from the 
Duke to the King. 

' The weather,' he said, ' though it is June, is as wild 
as in December. No one remembers such a season. It 



40 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

is the more strange since we are on the business of the 
Lord, and some reason there must be for what has 
befallen us. I told your Majesty that I was unfit for 
this command when you asked me to undertake it. I 
obeyed your orders, and now I am here in Corunna with 
the ships dispersed and the force remaining to me 
inferior to the enemy. The crews *are sick, and grow 
daily worse from bad food and water. Most of our 
provisions have perished, and we have not enough for 
more than two months' consumption. Much depends 
on the safety of this fleet. You have exhausted your 
resources to collect it, and if it is lost you may lose 
Portugal and the Indies. The men are out of spirit. 
The officers do not understand their business. We are 
no longer strong. Do not deceive yourself into thinking 
that we are equal to the work before us. You remember 
how much it cost you to conquer Portugal, a country 
adjoining Castile, where half the inhabitants were in 
your favour. We are now going against a powerful 
kingdom with only the weak force of the Prince of Parma 
and myself. I speak freely, but I have laid the matter 
before the Lord ; you must decide yourself what is to 
be done. Recollect only how many there are who envy 
your greatness and bear you no goodwill.' 1 

On the 27th thirty-five ships were still absent, and 
nothing had been heard of them. The storm, however, 
after all had not been especially severe, and it was not 
likely that they were lost. The condition to which the 



1 Medina Sidonia to Philip the Second from Corunna, June 24. 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 41 

rest were reduced was due merely to rascally contractors 
and official negligence, and all could easily be repaired 
by an efficient commander in whom the men had con- 
fidence. But the Duke had no confidence in himself 
nor the officers in him. Four weeks only had passed 
since he had left Lisbon and he was already despond- 
ent, and his disquieted subordinates along with him. 
He had written freely to Philip, and advised that the 
expedition should be abandoned. He again summoned 
the Vice-Admirals to his cabin and required their 
opinions. Should they or should they not go forward 
with their reduced force ? The Inspector-General, Don 
George Manrique, produced a schedule of numbers. 
They were supposed, he said, to have twenty-eight 
thousand men besides the galley-slaves. Owing to 
sickness and other causes, not more than twenty-two or 
twenty-three thousand could be regarded as effective, 
and of these six thousand were in the missing galleons. 
The Vice- Admirals were less easily frightened than their 
leader. None were for giving up. Most of them 
advised that they should wait where they were till the 
ships came in, repairing damages and taking in fresh 
stores. Pedro de Yaldez insisted that they should go 
on as soon as possible. While they remained in harbour 
fresh meat and vegetables might be served out, and the 
crews would soon recover from a sickness which was 
caused only by bad food. With vigour and energy all 
that was wrong could be set right. The missing ships 
were doubtless ahead expecting them, and would be 
fallen in with somewhere. 



42 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

Don Pedro was addressing brave men, and carried 
the council along with him. He wrote himself to Philip 
to tell him what had passed. 'The Duke/ he said, 
' bore him no goodwill for his advice, but he intended 
to persist in a course which he believed to be for his 
Majesty's honour.' 

A day or two later the wanderers came back and 
restored the Duke's courage. Some had been as far 
as Scilly, some even in Mount's Bay, but none had been 
lost and none had been seriously injured. The fresh 
meat was supplied as Don Pedro advised. The sick 
recovered ; not one died, and all were soon in health 
again. Fresh supplies were poured down out of the 
country. The casks were refilled with pure water. In 
short, the sun began to shine once more, and the despond- 
ency fit passed away. Philip wrote kindly and cheerily. 
' Everything would be furnished which they could want. 
The Duke might spend money freely, and need spare 
nothing to feed the men as they ought to be fed. If 
they had met with difficulties in the beginning they 
would have greater glory in the end. There were diffi- 
culties in every enterprise. They must overcome them 
and go on.' The Duke still hesitated. He said truly 
enough that other things were wanting besides food : 
powder, cordage, and the thousand minor stores which 
ought to have been provided and were not. But the 
rest of the chief officers were now in heart again, and 
he found himself alone ; Kecalde only, like a wise man, 
begging Philip to modify his instructions and allow him 
to secure Plymouth or Dartmouth on their advance, as, 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 43 

although they might gain a victory, it was unlikely to 
be so complete as to end the struggle, and they might 
require a harbour to shelter the fleet. 

Philip, unfortunately for himself, paid no attention 
to Recalde's suggestion, but only urged them to begone 
at their best speed. The ships were laid on shore to be 
scraped and tallowed. The gaps in the crews were 
filled up with fresh recruits. Another ship was added, 
and at the final muster there were a hundred and thirty- 
one vessels, between seven and eight thousand sailors 
and seventeen thousand infantry, two thousand slaves, 
and fourteen hundred officers, priests, gentlemen, and 
servants. With restored health and good-humour they 
were again commended to the Lord. Tents were set 
up on an island in the harbour, with an altar in each 
and friars in sufficient number to officiate. The ships' 
companies were landed and brought up man by man 
till the whole of them had again confessed and again 
received the Sacrament. 

* This/ said the Duke, ' is great riches, and the most 
precious jewel which I carry with me. They now are 
all well, and content, and cheerful.' 



II. 

Two months of summer were still left when the 
Armada made its second start out of Corunna on 
Friday, July 22, with fresh heart and better provision. 
On the 23rd the last vessel in the fleet had passed 



44 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

Cape Ortegal, and the wind, as if to make amends for 
past persecution, blew fair and moderate from the south. 
Saturday, Sunday, and Monday the galleons swept 
easily along across the Bay of Biscay, and on the Monday 
night, the 25th, the Duke found himself with all his 
flock about him at the mouth of the English Channel. 
Tuesday broke calm and cloudy, with a draft of 
northerly air. Heavy showers fell. One of the galleys 
had sprung a leak, and was obliged to go home. On 
Wednesday the wind backed to the west, and rose into 
a gale, blowing hard with a high sea. The waves broke 
into the stern galleries of the galleons, and the fleet 
was hove to. On Friday the storm was over, but there 
was still a long, heavy roll. The ships were unmanage- 
able, and from the maintop of the San Martin forty sail 
were again not to be seen. The remaining galleys, finding 
that in such weather they were like to be swamped, 
had made away for the coast of France ; the Santa 
Ana, the Capitana of the Biscay squadron, had dis- 
appeared completely, and was supposed to have been 
sunk. She had in fact lost her reckoning, and at last 
found her way into Havre. The rest of the missing 
ships proved only to be a few miles ahead. After a 
slight flatter, the Armada, shorn of its galleys and the 
Santa Ana, was again complete, and with the sky 
clearing from south-west went on upon its way. As yet 
they had seen nothing — not a sail or a boat ; but being 
on the enemy's coast they put themselves into fighting 
order. They were in three divisions. The Duke was 
in the centre with the main battle. Alonzo de Leyva 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 45 

led the advance as the post of honour. The rear was 
under Martinez de Recalde, the formation being like an 
oblique crescent, or like the moon when it lies on its 
back, De Leyva and Recalde being at the two horns. 

In this order they sailed slowly on through the day, 
still with nothing in sight, but knowing by observation 
and soundings that they were coming up to land. The 
sun on Friday, at noon, gave them 50 degrees, and the 
lead 56 fathoms. At four in the afternoon the grey 
ridge of the Lizard rose above the sea three leagues off. 
They were now in sight of the den of the dragon which 
they were come to slay, and Medina Sidonia ran up to 
his masthead a special flag of his own, which had been 
embroidered for the occasion — Christ on the Cross, and 
Our Lady and the Magdalen on either side of Him. As 
the folds unrolled in the breeze, each ship in the fleet 
fired a broadside, and the ships' companies gathered and 
knelt on the deck to give thanks to the Almighty. 

That evening the Duke despatched the last letter to 
the King which for a month he had leisure to write. 
So far, he said, the enemy had not shown himself, and 
he was going forward in the dark ; no word had come 
from Parma; before him was only the silent sea, and 
the long line of the Cornish coast, marked at intervals 
by columns of smoke which he knew to be alarm beacons. 
The sea that was so silent would soon be noisy enough. 
With a presentiment of danger, the Duke told the King 
that he must so far disregard his orders that, until Parma 
had communicated with him, he proposed to halt at the 
Isle of Wight and to go no further. Sail was taken in that 



46 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

night. On the Saturday morning a despatch boat was 
sent away with the letter to the King, and the fleet crept 
on slowly and cautiously. They had hoped to fall in 
with a fishing-smack, but none were to be discovered ; 
nor was it till Saturday night, or rather at one o'clock on 
the Sunday morning, that they were able to gather any 
information at all. At that hour, and not before, a 
pinnace that had gone forward to observe came back with 
four Falmouth fishermen who had been fallen in with 
at sea. From them the Duke and the admirals learnt 
that Drake and Howard had come out that morning 
from Plymouth harbour, and were lying in the Sound, 
or outside it, waiting for them. The burning beacons 
had brought notice on the Friday evening that the 
Armada was in sight, and the English had instantly got 
under way. The Spanish records and diaries say dis- 
tinctly that from these fishermen they had gathered 
their first and only knowledge of the English movements. 
The charge afterwards brought against the Duke, there- 
fore, that he had learnt that Plymouth was undefended, 
that Oquendo and Recalde urged him to go in and take 
it, and that he refused and lost the opportunity, is proved 
to be without foundation. Very likely a council of 
admirals did advise that Plymouth should be attacked if 
they found Howard and Drake still in the Sound, for in 
the narrow space the ships would be close together, and 
the superior numbers of the Spaniards and their superior 
strength in small arms and musketry would be able to 
assert themselves. Medina Sidonia may have agreed, 
for all that any one can say to the contrary, but the 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 47 

opportunity was never allowed him. The English fleet 
was already outside, and the Duke could not enter till 
he had fought an action. 

An hour after midnight, on the Sunday morning, the 
Falmouth boatmen gave their information. Four hours 
later, directly off Ramhead, the two fleets were engaged. 
The air through the night had been light from the 
west. The water was smooth. At five o'clock, just after 
sunrise, eleven large vessels were seen from the deck of 
the San Martin three miles to leeward, outside the 
Mewstone, manoeuvring to recover the wind, which was 
beginning to freshen. Forty others were counted 
between the Armada and the land to the west of the 
Sound. The squadron first seen consisted of the 
Queen's ships under Lord Howard; the others were 
Drake and the privateers. The breeze rose rapidly. 
The Duke flew the consecrated standard, and signalled 
to the whole fleet to brace round their yards and bold 
the wind between the two English divisions. Howard, 
however, with apparent ease, went on to windward and 
joined Drake. Both of them then stood out to sea 
behind the whole Armada, firing heavily into Recalde 
and the rearward Spanish squadron as they passed. 
Recalde tried hard to close, but Sir John Hawkins had 
introduced new lines into the construction of the Ens'- 
lish ships. The high castles at poop and stem had been 
reduced, the length increased, the beam diminished. 
They could sail perhaps within five points of the wind. 
They showed powers, at any rate, entirely new to 
Recalde, for they seemed to be able to keep at any 



48 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

distance which they pleased from him. They did not 
try to break his line or capture detached vessels. With 
their heavy guns, which he found to his cost to be of 
weightier metal and to carry farther than his own, they 
poured their broadsides into him at their leisure, and 
he could make no tolerable reply. Alonzo de Leyva 
and Oquendo, seeing that Recalde was suffering severely, 
went to his assistance, but only to experience themselves 
the effects of this novel method of naval combat and 
naval construction. To fight at a distance was contrary to 
Spanish custom, and was not held worthy of honourable 
men. But it was effective ; it was perplexing, it was 
deadly. The engagement lasted on these conditions 
through the whole Sunday forenoon. The officers of 
the Armada did all that gallant men could achieve. 
They refused to recognise where the English superiority 
lay till it was forced upon them by torn rigging and 
shattered hulls. Recalde' s own ship fired a hundred 
and twenty shot, and it was thought a great thing. 
But the English had fired five to the Spanish one, and 
the effect was the greater because, as in Rodney's action 
at Dominica, the galleons were crowded with troops, 
among whom shot and splinter had worked havoc. 
The Castilians and Biscayans were brave enough ; there 
were no braver men in the world ; but they were in a 
position where courage was of no use to them. They 
were perplexed and disturbed ; and a gentleman present 
who describes the scene observes that ' este dia mos- 
traronse de nuestra Armada algunos officiales medrosos ' 
—this day some of the officers of our fleet showed 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 49 

cowardice. The allusion was perhaps to the Duke, who 
had looked on and done nothing. 

No prizes were taken. Drake and Howard under- 
stood their business too well to waste life upon single 
captures. Their purpose was to harass, shatter, and 
weaken the entire Armada, as opportunity might offer, 
with the least damage to themselves, till shot and 
weather, and the casualties likely to occur under such 
conditions, had reduced the fleets to something nearer 
to an equality. Tactics so novel baffled the Spaniards. 
They had looked for difficulties, but they had counted 
with certainty on success if they could force the English 
into a general engagement. No wonder that they were 
unpleasantly startled at the result of the first experiment. 

The action, if such it could be called when the 
Armada had been but a helpless target to the English 
guns, lasted till four in the afternoon. The south-west 
wind then was blowing up, and the sea was rising. The 
two fleets had by that time driven past the opening into 
the Sound. The Duke could not have gone in if he 
had tried, nor could De Leyva himself, under such cir- 
cumstances, have advised him to try ; so, finding that 
he could do nothing, and was only throwing away life, 
he signalled from the San Martin to bear away up 
Channel. The misfortunes of the day, however, were 
not yet over. The Spanish squadrons endeavoured to 
resume their proper positions, De Leyva leading and 
Recalde covering the rear. The English followed 
leisurely, two miles behind, and Recalde's own vessel 
had suffered so much in the engagement that she wag 



50 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

observed to be dropping back, and to be in danger of 
being left alone and overtaken. Pedro de Valdez, in 
the Capitana of the Andalusian squadron, one of the 
finest ships in the fleet, observing his old comrade in 
difficulties, bore np to help him. After such a day, the 
men, perhaps, were all of them disturbed, and likely to 
make mistakes in difficult manoeuvres. In turning, 
the Capitana came into collision with the Santa Cata- 
lina and broke her own bowsprit ; the fore-topmast 
followed, and the ship became an unmanageable wreck. 
She had five hundred men on board, besides a con- 
siderable part of the money which had been sent for 
the use of the fleet. To desert such a vessel, and desert 
along with it one of the principal officers of the 
expedition, on the first disaster, would be an act of 
cowardice and dishonour not to be looked for in a 
Spanish nobleman. But night was coming on. To 
bear up was to risk a renewal of the fighting, for which 
the Duke had no stomach. He bore Don Pedro a 
grudge for having opposed him at Corunna, when he 
had desired to abandon the expedition ; Diego Florez, 
his adviser, had also his dislike for Don Pedro, and, to 
the astonishment of every one, the signal was made that 
the fleet was not to stop, and that Don Pedro was to be 
left to his fate. De Leyva and Oquendo, unable to 
believe the order to be serious, hastened on board the 
San Martin to protest. The Duke hesitated; Diego 
Florez, however, said that to wait would be to risk the 
loss of the whole fleet, and by Diego Florez Philip had 
directed the Duke to be guided. Boats were sent back 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 51 

to bring off the Capitana's treasure and the crew, but in 
the rising sea boats could do nothing. Don Pedro was 
deserted, overtaken, and of course captured, after a 
gallant resistance. The ship was carried into Dart- 
mouth, and proved a valuable prize. Besides the 
money, there was found a precious store of powder, 
which the English sorely needed. Among other articles 
was a chest of swords, richly mounted, which the Duke 
was taking over to be presented to the English Catholic 
peers. Don Pedro himself was treated with the high 
courtesy which he deserved, to be ransomed at the end 
of a year, and to be spared the ignominy of further 
service under his extraordinary commander-in-chief. 

The loss of Don Pedro was not the last, and not the 
worst, calamity of the night. Soon after dark the air 
was shaken and the sky was lighted by an explosion in 
the centre of the Spanish fleet. Oquendo's ship, Our 
Lady of the Rose, was blown up, and two hundred men, 
dead and wounded, were hurled into the sea. The 
wreck that was left was seen to be in a blaze, in which 
the rest on board were like to perish. Oquendo him- 
self was absent. Some said it was an accident, others 
that it had been done by an Englishman in disguise, 
others that there had been some quarrel, and that one 
of the parties in a rage had flung a match into the 
magazine and sprung overboard. This time the Armada 
was rounded to ; the burning ship was covered by the 
main body. The money on board, for each galleon 
had its own treasury, was taken out with the survivors 
of the crew. The hull was then abandoned to the 



52 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

English. A few casks of stores were still found in her 
hold which had escaped destruction. Shortly afterwards 
she sank. 

From the day on which it sailed the fleet had been 
pursued by misfortune. Two such disasters following 
on the unexpected and startling features of the first 
engagement struck a chill through the whole force. 
The officers had no longer the least trust in a commander- 
in-chief whom they had ill liked from the first. The 
national honour was supposed to be touched by the 
desertion of Pedro de Valdez, who was universally loved 
and respected. The Duke was suspected to be no better 
than a poltroon. The next morning, August T, broke 
heavily. The wind was gone, and the galleons were 
rolling in the swell. The enemy was hull down behind 
them, and the day was spent in repairing damages, 
knotting broken ropes, and nailing sheets of lead over 
the shot-holes. Recalde's ship had been so roughly 
handled that the disposition of the squadrons was 
altered. De Leyva took charge of the rear in the Rata 
Coronada, where the danger was greatest. Don Martinez 
was passed forward into the advance, where he could 
attend to his hurts out of harm's way. The Duke in 
sour humour found fault all round, as incompetent 
commanders are apt to do. Orders were issued that 
each ship should keep a position definitely laid down ; 
and any captain found out of his place was to be im- 
mediately hanged. Men will endure much from leaders 
whom they trust. Severity at such a moment was 
resented as ill-timed and undeserved. The day passed 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 53 

without incident. With the sunset the sea fell smooth, 
and not an air was stirring. The English fleet had come 
up, but was still a league behind. Both fleets were 
then off Portland. An hour after midnight De Leyva, 
Oquendo, and Recalde, burning with shame and indig- 
nation, came on board the San Martin, woke the Duke 
out of his sleep, and told him that now was the time for 
him to repair his credit. By the light of the rising 
moon the English ships could be seen drifted apart with 
the tide, and deprived in the breathless calm of their 
superior advantages. The galeasses, with their oars, 
should be sent out instantly to attack single vessels. 
The dawn it was likely would bring a breeze from the 
east, when the galleons could gather way and support 
them. The Duke roused himself. Oquendo himself 
carried the orders to the captain of the galeasses, Don 
Hugo de Mon^ada. The galeasses prepared for action. 
The easterly air came up as was expected, and with the 
first clear light Howard was seen dead to leeward stand- 
ing in for the land, and endeavouring, as he had done 
at Plymouth, to recover the weather-gauge. The gale- 
asses proved of small service after all, for the wind was 
soon too fresh ; and they were useless. They could do 
nothing except in a calm. But the San Martin and her 
leading consorts bore down with all sail set. Howard, 
being near the shore, had to tack and stand off to sea. 
He had thus to pass out through the centre of the whole 
Spanish fleet. The ships became intermixed, the Ark 
Raleigh was surrounded with enemies, and every Spanish 
captain's heart was bounding with the hope of boarding 



54 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

her. If they could once grapple they were justly con- 
fident in the numbers and courage of their men. So 
near the chances were at one moment, that Martin de 
Bretandona, the Levantine commander, might have 
closed with one of the largest of the English ships ' if 
he could have been contented with less than the vessel 
which carried Howard's flag.' But the wind freshened 
up with the day, and Don Martin and his friends saw 
vessels handled in a style which they had never seen 
before. It has been often confidently urged, as a reason 
for reducing the naval estimates, that Howard's fleet 
was manned by volunteers, and not by professional 
seamen. It is true that the English crews were not 
composed of men who were in the permanent service 
of the Crown, but never in the history of the country 
were a body of sailors gathered together more experi- 
enced in sailing ships and fighting them. They were 
the rovers of the ocean. To navigate the wildest seas, 
to fight Spaniards wherever they could meet them, had 
for thirty years been their occupation and their glory. 
Tacking, wearing, making stern way where there was 
no room to turn, they baffled every attack by the swift- 
ness of their movements, and cleared their way out of 
the throng. Once more they drew away to windward, 
took at their leisure such positions as suited them, and, 
themselves beyond the reach of the feeble Spanish 
artillery, fired into the galleons with their long heavy 
guns till five o'clock in the afternoon. This day the 
Duke personally behaved well. The San Martin was 
in the thickest of the fight, and received fifty shots in 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 55 

her hull. The famous standard was cut in two. The 
leaks were so many and so formidable that the divers 
were again at work all night plugging and stopping the 
holes. But the result was to show him, and to show 
them all, that the English ships were superior to theirs 
in speed and power and weight of artillery, and that to 
board them against their will was entirely hopeless. 
Another observation some of them made which was 
characteristic of the age. The galleons which had no 
gentlemen on board had been observed to hold off and 
keep out of range. In the evening the wind fell. With 
the last of it, Howard and Drake bore away and left 
them, as, with the calm, the galeasses might again be 
dangerous. Wednesday was breathless. The English 
wanted powder besides, having used what they had 
freely ; and they were forced to wait for fresh supplies, 
which came up in the course of the afternoon. The 
Duke, as has been seen, was superstitious. So far the 
nuns' and the hermits' visions had not been realised, 
but, perhaps, his past ill-success had been sent only 
as a trial of his faith. 

The 4th of August, Thursday, was St. Dominic's 
Day. The house of Guzman de Silva claimed St. 
Dominic as a member of their family ; and St. Dominic, 
the Duke was assured, would now lend a hand to his 
suffering kinsman. The Isle of Wight, where he had 
announced to Philip that he intended to stop, was 
directly under his lee. Once anchored in St. Helen's 
Koads he would have the Armada in a safe shelter, 
where, if the English chose to attack him, they must 



56 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 



come to closer quarters, as there would not be sea room 
for the manoeuvres which had been so disastrous to 
him. 1 If he could land ten thousand men he might 
take the island ; and, perplexed, agitated, and harassed 
by the unexpected course which events had taken with 
him, he probably still intended to act on this resolution, 
which was the wisest which he could have formed. He 
would have another action to fight before he could get 
in, but with St. Dominic's help he might this time have 
better fortune. 

Howard and Drake seemed willing to give St. 
Dominic an opportunity of showing what he could do. 
They had received their powder. They had been re- 
inforced by a few privateers who had come out from the 
Needles, and they showed a disposition to engage at a 
nearer distance than they had hitherto ventured. They 
were so far at a disadvantage that the wind was light, 
but, using what there was of it, the Ark Raleigh led 
straight down on the San Martin, ranged alongside, and 
opened a furious fire from her lower ports, as it appeared 
to the Spaniards, with heavier guns than she had used 
in the previous actions. Again the San Martin was 



1 The Duke's intention of stop- 
ping at the Isle of Wight was ex- 
pressed by him as clearly as possible. 
Writing on July 30 to the King, 
he said he must advance ' poco a 
poco con toda el Armada junta en 
mis escuadrones hasta isla D'Wich 
y no pasar adelante hasta tener 
aviso del Duque de Parma. Porque 
si yo saliese de alii con esta, la 



costa de Flandes no habiendo en 
toda ella puerto ni abrigo ninguno 
para estas naves, con el primer tem- 
poral que les diese los echaria a los 
bancos, donde sin ningun remedio 
se habrian de perder ; y por excusar 
este peligro tan evidente, me ha 
parecido no pasar adelante de aquel- 
la isla hasta saber lo que el Duque 
hace,' etc.— Duro, vol. ii., p. 221. 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 



57 



badly cut up. Many of her men were killed and more 
were wounded. Seeing her hard pressed, Recalde and 
Oquendo came to the Duke's support. Oquendo drove 
his own ship between the Ark and the San Martin, 
receiving the broadside intended for her, and apparently 
causing some confusion on board the Ark by a shot of 
his own. At this moment the wind dropped altogether. 
An eddy of the tide carried off the other English ships, 
leaving Howard surrounded once more by the enemy 
and in worse difficulties than in the fight off Portland. 
Three large galleons were close on board of him, with 
Oquendo, the boldest officer of the Armada, in one of 
them. Eleven boats, to the amazement of the Spaniards, 
dropped over the Ark's side. Hundreds of men sprang 
into them, seized their oars, and took the Ark in tow, 
careless of the storm of musketry which was rattling 
upon them. She was aleady moving when the breeze 
rose again. Her sails filled and she flew away, dragging 
her own boats, and leaving behind the swiftest of the 
pursuing galleons as if they were at anchor. 1 

Again the experience was the same. St. Dominic 
had been deaf or impotent, and a long day of fighting 
at disadvantage ended as usual. The ammunition of 
the Armada, which the Duke knew from the first to be 
insufficient, was giving out under the unprecedented 
demands upon it. Had he been wise he would still 
have made a desperate attempt to force his way into St. 



1 ' Se fue saliendo con tanta 
velocidad que el galeon San Juan 
de Fernando y otro ligerisimo, con 



ser los mas veleros de la Armada, 
que le fueron dando caea, en com- 
paracion se quedaron surtos.' 



58 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

Helen's. His strength was not very much reduced. 
Thousrh the loss of life had been considerable. Pedro de 
Valdez's ship was the only one which had been taken. 
To prevent him from entering the Solent the English 
must have closed with him, which they still hesitated 
to do, as they could not now tell how much hurt they 
had inflicted. The Duke had still this single chance 
of recovering his credit. He might have gone in. Had 
he done it, he might have taken the Wight, have even 
taken Portsmouth or Southampton; at all events, he 
would have placed the Armada in a position out of 
which it would have been extremely difficult to dislodge 
it. But the unfortunate man had lost his head. He 
hated his work. He determined to look neither right 
nor left, but stick to Philip's own instructions, go on to 
the Straits of Dover as he had been told to do, send 
Parma notice of his arrival, and leave the rest to fate. 
He despatched a messenger to tell the Prince to expect 
him and to have his army embarked ready to cross on 
the instant of his arrival. He asked for a supply of 
fly-boats, gun-boats worked with oars, which Parma 
could not send him, and for ammunition of which the 
Prince had none to dispose, expecting himself rather 
to be furnished from the fleet. Then, taking the worst 
resolution possible, and going forward to inevitable ruin, 
he signalled to his flock to follow him, and pursued 
his way up Channel, followed by the English as before. 
The Isle of Wight once passed, the worst danger to 
England was over. Lord Henry Seymour's squadron 
was in the Downs. Howard and Drake would soon 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 59 

join hands with him, and they could then concert what 
was next to be done. 

The Armada drifted on before a light west wind 
through Thursday night, all Friday, and till Saturday 
afternoon. They were then at Calais and dropped 
anchor in the roads. Like a shadow which they could 
not shake off, the English clung to them behind. As 
they anchored, the English anchored also, a mile and a 
half astern, as if the infernal devils, esta endemoniada 
gente, had known what the Duke was going to do. 
Philip's advice had been to avoid the French coast, to 
keep the other side, and to bring up behind the North 
Foreland. The Duke, like Sancho in the night 
adventure with the fulling-hammers, was flying for 
safety under the skirts of Parma's coat, and thought 
that the nearer he could be to him the better it would 
be. He had thus brought his charge to the most 
dangerous roadstead in the Channel, with an enemy 
close to him who had less cause to fear the weather 
than he, and almost within gunshot of the French shore, 
when he did not know whether France was friend or 
foe. For the moment he thought himself secure. The 
wind was off the land. He looked to see the Prince 
of Parma and his boats coming out of Dunkirk at 
latest on the Monday morning. The French Governor 
came off to call before dark, expressed his surprise to 
see him in a position where a shift of weather might 
be inconvenient, but offered him, meanwhile, the hos- 
pitalities of the port. On the Sunday morning, August 
7, the purveyor of the fleet went on shore to buy 



60 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

vegetables. The men were employed cleaning up the 
guns and setting the ships in order after the confusion 
of the past week, and so much work had to be done 
that the daily rations were not served out, and the 
Sunday holy day was a harassed fast. As the day 
wore on messengers came in from Parma. His trans- 
ports were lying in Dunkirk, but nothing was ready, 
and the troops could not be embarked for a fortnight. 
He was himself at Bruges, but promised to hurry down 
to the port and to use all possible expedition. This 
was not consoling intelligence. In the uncertain 
weather the Calais roadstead was no place to linger 
in ; and the Duke's anxieties were not diminished when 
the English squadron of the Downs under Seymour and 
Sir John Hawkins sailed in and anchored with their 
consorts. Hawkins — Achines they called him — was an 
object of peculiar terror to the Spaniards from his 
exploits in the West Indies. Next to Drake, or the 
Dragon, he was more feared than any other English 
seaman. The galleons were riding with two anchors 
on account of the tide. An English pinnace, carrying 
a light gun, ran down in the afternoon, sailed up to the 
San Martin, lodged a couple of shots in her hull, and 
went off again. Hugo de Monqada sent a ball after 
her from the Capitana galeass which cut a hole in 
her topsail, but she flew lightly away. The Spanish 
officers could not refuse their admiration for such airy 
impertinence. 

If the Duke was uneasy the English commanders 
did not mean to snve him time to recover himself. 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 61 

Calais Roads might be an awkward anchorage, but the 
weather might settle. August weather in the Channel 
often did settle. There had been a week of fighting 
and the Armada had got the worst of it, but still there 
it was, to outward appearance, not much damaged and 
within touch of the Prince of Parma. The backward 
state of Parma's preparations was unknown and un- 
suspected by the English commanders. Any morning 
he might be looked for, issuing out of Dunkirk with his 
fleet of gunboats, his army on board his barges, and 
making his way across the Straits with the Armada to 
protect him. That Sunday evening Howard, Drake, 
Hawkins, Seymour, and Martin Frobisher held a con- 
sultation in the Ark's main cabin. The course which 
they intended to follow had probably been resolved on 
generally when Howard anchored so near the enemy 
on the previous evening, and the meeting must have 
been only to arrange the method and moment of action. 
After nightfall, the flood tide would be running strong 
along the coast, and an intermittent but rising wind 
was coming up from the west. The Duke, as he 
restlessly paced his deck, observed lights moving soon 
after dark among the English vessels. He expected 
mischief of some kind and had ordered a strict look- 
out. About midnight eight large hulks were seen 
coming slowly down with tide and wind. Spars, ropes, 
and sails had been steeped in pitch, and as they 
approached nearer they burst out into flame and smoke. 
Straight on they came, for they had crews on board to 
direct the course, who only retreated to their boats when 



62 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

it was impossible to remain longer. The Spaniards, 
already agitated by the strange tricks of their English 
foes, imagined that the fire -ships were floating mines 
like those which had blown to pieces so many thousands 
of men at the bridge at Antwerp. The Duke, instead 
of sending launches to tow them clear, fired a signal 
for the whole fleet to get instantly under way. In the 
hurry and alarm, and with two anchors down, they had 
no time to weigh. They cut their cables, leaving buoys 
by which to recover them at daylight, and stood out 
into the Channel, congratulating themselves for the 
moment at having skilfully and successfully avoided a 
threatening danger. Medina Sidonia's intention had 
been to bring up again outside. He himself let go an 
anchor two miles off, and the best-appointed galleons 
followed his example. The main body, unfortunately, 
had been sent to sea so ill-provided that their third 
anchors, where they had any, were stowed away below 
and could not be brought up in time. Thus, when 
day dawned, the Duke found himself with less than 
half his force about him. The rest had drifted away 
on the tide and were six miles to leeward. The purpose 
of his enemy's 'traicion/ treason, as the Spaniards 
regarded it, was now apparent. The San Martin, and 
the vessels which remained with her, hoisted anchor 
and signalled to return to the roadstead. Seventy of 
the Duke's ships were far away, unable to obey if they 
had tried. The wind had drawn into the north-west ; 
they were driving seemingly on the fatal banks, and 
when the Duke proposed to go after them, the pilots 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 63 

told him that if he did they would probably be all lost 
together. 

The spectacle on the shore was yet more dispiriting. 
The Capitana galeass, in clearing out from the fire-ships, 
had fouled the cable of another vessel. Monc^ada, who 
commanded her, knew as little of seamanship as his 
commander-in-chief. Her helm was jammed. An 
English crew with two hundred men at the oars would 
have found a way to manage her, but with galley- 
slaves nothing could be done. She had drifted ashore 
under the town, and as the tide had gone back, was 
lying on her side on the sands, defending herself 
desperately against the crews of six English ships, one 
of them Howard's Ark, who were attacking her in their 
boats. Monc,ada fought like a hero till he was killed 
by a musket-shot, the slaves jumped overboard, the 
surviving sailors and soldiers followed their example, 
and the galeass was taken and plundered. 

To the Duke such a sight was sad enough ; but he 
had little time to attend to it. While Howard was 
losing time over the galeass, Drake and Hawkins had 
stooped on a nobler quarry. The great fleet was parted ; 
forty ships alone were present to defend the consecrated 
banner of Castile which was flying from the mainmast 
of the San Martin. Forty only, and no more, were 
engaged in the battle which stripped Spain of her 
supremacy at sea. But in those forty were Oquendo, 
De Leyva, Recalde, Bretandona, all that was best and 
bravest in the Spanish service. The first burst of the 
storm fell on the San Martin herself. Drake, deter- 



64 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

mined to make the most of his opportunity, no longer 
held off at long range, but closed up, yardarm to yard- 
arm ; not to make prizes of the galleons, but to destroy, 
sink, or disable them. The force which the English 
brought into the action was no longer unequal to that 
of the enemy. The air was soon so full of smoke that 
little could be seen from one ship of what was passing 
in another part of the action. Each captain fought his 
own vessel as he could, Medina giving no orders. He 
who, till the past few days, had never heard a shot 
fired in anger, found himself in the centre of the most 
furious engagement that history had a record of. He 
was accused afterwards of having shown cowardice. It 
was said that his cabin was stuffed with woolpacks, and 
that he lay himself during the fight in the middle of 
them. It was said, also, that he charged his pilot to 
take his ship where the danger was least. If he did, 
his pilot disobeyed his orders, for the San Martin was 
in the hottest part of the battle. It could not be other- 
wise. The flag which she carried to the end of it 
necessarily drew the heaviest fire upon her. The 
accounts of eye-witnesses charge the Duke only with 
the helpless incapacity which he had himself been the 
first to acknowledge. Though the San Martin's timbers 
were of double thickness, the shot at close range went 
through and through her, ' enough to shatter to pieces 
a rock.' Her deck became a slaughter-house. Half 
her crew were killed or wounded, and she would have 
been sunk altogether had not Oquendo and De Leyva 
dashed in and forced the English to turn their guns 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE, ARMADA. 65 

upon them, and enabled the unhappy Duke to crawl 
away and stop his leaks again. This was about noon; 
and from that time he himself saw no more till the 
engagement was over. Even from his maintop nothing 
could be made out for the smoke; but the air was 
shaking with the roar of the artillery. The Spanish 
officers behaved with the desperate heroism which 
became the countrymen of Cortez and Santa Cruz, and 
never did Spanish soldier or seaman distinguish himself 
more than on this tremendous day. There was no 
flinching, though the blood was seen streaming out of 
the scuppers. Priests went up and down under the 
hottest fire, crucifix in hand, confessing and absolving 
the dying. Not a ship struck her colours. They stood 
to their guns till their powder was all gone, and in half 
the ships not a round was left. 

Happily for them, the English were no better fur- 
nished ; Howard's ammunition was all exhausted also, 
and the combat ended from mere incapacity to continue 
it. But the engagement from the first preserved the 
same character which had been seen in those which 
had preceded it. The Spaniards' courage was useless 
to them. Their ships could not turn or sail; their 
guns were crushed by the superior strength of the 
English artillery ; they were out-matched in practical 
skill, and, close as the ships were to one another, they 
could not once succeed in fixing a grappling-iron in an 
English rigging. Thus, while their own losses were 
terrible, they could inflict but little in return. They 



66 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

had endured for live hours to be torn to pieces by 
cannon-shot — and that was all. 

Before sunset the firing had ceased ; the wind rose, 
the smoky canopy drifted away, and the San Martin 
and her comrades were seen floating, torn and tattered, 
casi sin poder hacer mas resistencia, almost powerless to 
resist longer. If the attack had continued for the two 
hours of daylight that remained, they must all have 
sunk or surrendered. A galleon in Recalde's squadron 
had gone down with all hands on board. The San 
Philip and the San Matteo were falling away dismasted 
and helpless towards the Dutch coast, where they after- 
wards went ashore. The condition of the rest was little 
better. The slaughter had been appalling from the 
crowd of soldiers who were on board. They had given 
themselves up as lost, when it pleased God, for they 
could give no other explanation, that the enemy ceased 
to fire, drew off, and left them to bring their vessels to 
the wind, throw their dead overboard, and see to the 
hurts of the wounded, who were counted by thousands. 
They were so crippled that they could not bear their 
canvas, and unless they could repair their damages 
swiftly, the north-west wind which was rapidly rising 
would drive them on the banks above Dunkirk. From 
the day on which they left Lisbon an inexorable fatality 
had pursued them. They had started in an inflated 
belief that they were under the especial care of the 
Almighty. One misfortune had trod on another's heel ; 
the central misfortune of all, that they had been com- 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 67 

manded by a fool, had begun to dawn on the whole of 
them. But the conviction came too late to be of use, 
and only destroyed what was left of discipline. The 
soldiers, finding that they outnumbered the seamen, 
snatched the control, chose their own course, and forced 
the pilots to steer as they pleased. The night passed 
miserably in examining into injuries, patching up what 
admitted of being mended, and discovering other hurts 
which could not be mended. The fresh water which 
they had brought from Corunna had been stowed on 
deck. The casks had been shot through in the action, 
and most of it was gone. The Ave Maria, if it was 
sung that evening, must have been a dirge, and the 
Buenos Dias of the ship boys in the morning a melan- 
choly mockery. Yet seventy vessels out of the great 
fleet were still entire. They had not come up to join 
in the fight, because they could not. Their hulls were 
sound, their spars were standing, their crews untouched 
by any injury worse than despondency. The situation 
was not really desperate, and a capable chief with such 
a force at his disposition might have done something 
still to retrieve his country's credit, if only these ships 
could be made use of. Yet when day broke it seemed 
that a common fate would soon overtake those who had 
fought and those who so far had escaped. 

They came together in the night. The dawn found 
them dragging heavily into the North Sea. The north- 
west wind was blowing hard, and setting them bodily 
on the banks. The bad sailers could not go to windward 
at all. Those which had been in the fight could not 



68 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

bear sail enough to hold a course which, when sound, 
they might have found barely possible. The crews 
were worn out. On the Sunday they had been dinner- 
less and supperless. All Monday they had been fight- 
ing, and all Monday night plugging shot-holes and 
fishing spars. The English fleet hung dark and threat- 
ening a mile distant on the weather quarter. The 
water was shoaling every moment. They could see the 
yellow foam where the waves were breaking on the 
banks. To wear round would be to encounter another 
battle, for which they had neither heart nor strength, 
while the English appeared to be contented to let the 
elements finish the work for them. The English vessels 
drew more water, and would have grounded while the 
galleons were still afloat. It was enough for them if 
they could prevent the Armada from turning round, and 
could force it to continue upon a course of which an 
hour or two would probably see the end. The San 
Martin and Oquendo's ship, the San Juan, were furthest 
out. The sounding-line on the San Martin gave at last 
but six fathoms ; the vessels to leeward had only five. 
Some one, perhaps Diego Florez, advised the Duke to 
strike his flag and surrender. Report said that a boat 
was actually lowered to go off to Howard and make 
terms, and that Oquendo had prevented it from pushing 
off, by saying savagely that he would fling Diego Florez 
overboard. The Duke's friends, however, denied the 
charge, and insisted that he never lost his faith in God 
and God's glorious mother. Certain it is, that witn 
death staring them in the face and themselves helpless, 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 69 

men and officers betook themselves to prayer as the 
only refuge left, and apparently the prayer was answered. 
A person who was on the San Martin describes the 
scene. Every one was in despair, he said, and only 
looking for destruction. Had the enemy known the 
condition in which they were, and borne down and 
attacked them, they must all have given in, for they 
were without power to defend themselves. At the last 
extremity, somewhere about noon, ( God was pleased to 
work a miracle.' The wind shifted, backing to the 
south-west, and ceased to jam them down upon the 
sands. With eased sheets they were able to point their 
heads northwards and draw out into the deep water. 
The enemy followed, still keeping at the same distance, 
but showed no further disposition to meddle with them ; 
and the Armada breathed again, though huddled together 
like a flock of frightened sheep. A miracle they thought 
it. Being pious Catholics and living upon faith in the 
supernatural they recovered heart, and began to think 
that God's anger was spent, and that He would now be 
propitious. He had been with them when they thought 
they were deserted. He had brought the survivors of 
them ' through the most terrible cannonade ever seen 
in the history of the world ' (la mas fuerte bateria y 
major que los nacidos han visto ni los escriptores han 
escrito). He had perhaps been disciplining them to do 
His work after all. Death at any rate was no longer 
before their eyes. 

Alas ! if the change of wind was really an act of 
Providence in answer to prayer, Providence was playing 



70 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

with their credulity, and reserving them deliberately for 
an end still more miserable. This Tuesday, August 9, 
was the day of Philip's patron saint, St. Lawrence, 
whose arm he had lately added to his sacred treasures 
in the Escurial. In the afternoon a council of war was 
again held on board the flag-ship, consisting of the 
Duke, Alonzo de Leyva, Recalde, Don Francisco de 
Bobadilla, and Diego Florez. They had little pleasant 
to say to each other. Oquendo was at first absent, but 
came in while they were still deliberating. O Senor 
Oquendo, they cried, ' que haremos/ ' What shall we 
do ? ' ' Do ! ' he replied, ' bear up and fight again.' It 
was the answer of a gallant man who preferred death to 
disgrace. But the Duke had to consider how to save 
what was left of his charge, and the alternatives had to 
be considered. They were before the wind, running 
right up the North Sea. The Duke explained that 
every cartridge had been spent in the vessels which 
had been engaged, and that, although some were left in 
the rest of the fleet, the supply was miserably short. 
Their ships were leaking. Half the sailors and half the 
artillerymen were killed or wounded. The Prince of 
Parma was not ready, and they had found by experience 
that they were no match for the English in fighting. 
The coast of Spain was at present unprotected, and 
unless they could carry the fleet home in safety would 
be in serious danger. The Duke's own opinion was 
that they ought to make haste back, and by the sea 
route round the North of Scotland and Ireland. To 
return through the Straits implied more battles, and in 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 71 

their battered state it was doubtful whether they could 
work their way as the wind stood, even if the enemy- 
left them alone. 

Flight, for it was nothing else, after such high ex- 
pectations and loud prayers and boastings, flight after 
but a week's conflict, seemed to the old companions of 
Santa Cruz an intolerable shame. De Leyva was 
doubtful. He admitted, as the Duke said, that the 
English were too strong for them. They had done their 
best and it had not availed. His own ship would 
hardly float, and he had not thirty cartridges left. 
Recalde and Bobadilla supported Oquendo, and insisted 
that, at whatever risk, they must endeavour to recover 
Calais Roads. They were old sailors, who had weathered 
many a storm, and fought in many a battle. The 
chances of war had been against them so far, but would 
not be against them always. If the English fleet could 
go down Channel, it was not to be supposed that a 
Spanish fleet could not, and if they were to return home 
the Channel was the nearest road. If the worst came, 
an honourable death was better than a scandalous retreat. 

Spanish history has accused Medina Sidonia of 
having been the cause that the bolder course was 
rejected. Independent contemporary witnesses say 
that it was made impossible by the despondency of 
the men, who could not be induced to encounter the 
English again. 

Though he determined against returning through 
the Channel, more than one alternative was still open 
to him. The harbours of Holland and Zealand were 



72 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

in the hands of Dutch rebels. But there was the Elbe, 
there was the Baltic, there was Norway. If the Duke 
had been a man of daring and genius there was the 
Frith of Forth. Had he anchored off Leith and played 
his cards judiciously, there was still a possibility for 
him to achieve something remarkable. The Duke, 
however, probably knew that his master had intended 
to exclude the King of Scots from the English succes- 
sion, and may have doubted the reception which he 
might meet with. Or, and perhaps more probably, he 
was sick of a command which had brought him nothing 
but defeat and distraction, and was only eager to 
surrender his trust at the earliest possible moment. 

Thus forlorn and miserable, the great Armada, 
which was to have made an end of the European 
Reformation, was set upon its course for the Orkneys, 
from thence to bear away to the West of Ireland, and 
so round to Spain. Drake and Howard, not conceiving 
that their object would be so lightly abandoned, and 
ignorant of the condition to which the enemy was 
reduced, followed them at a distance to see what they 
would do, and on the Wednesday had almost taken 
Recalde, whose disabled ship was lagging behind. The 
Duke, however, did not dare to desert a second admiral. 
He waited for Recalde to come up, and the English did 
not interfere. In fact they could not. Owing to Eliza- 
beth's parsimony, their magazines were hardly better 
furnished than the Spanish. In pursuing the Armada 
they acknowledged that they were but ' putting on a 
brag ' to frighten the Duke out of turning back. They 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 73 

could not have seriously attacked him again, at all 
events for many days, and the bravest course would 
after all have proved the safest for him. As it was, he 
saved Kecalde, and went on thanking Providence for 
having induced the English to let him alone. 



TIL 

On Friday the 12th the Armada passed the mouth 
of the Forth. Howard had followed so far, expecting 
that it might seek shelter there. But it went by with 
a leading wind. He knew then that till another season 
they would see no more of it, so put about and returned 
to Margate. 

Relieved of his alarming presence, the Spaniards 
were able to look into their condition and to prepare 
for a voyage which might now be protracted for several 
weeks. The Duke himself was short and sullen, shut 
himself in his state-room, and refused to see or speak 
with any one. Diego Florez became the practical 
commander, and had to announce the alarming news 
that the provisions taken in at Corunna had been 
wholly inadequate, and that at the present rate of 
consumption they would all be starving in a fortnight. 
The state of the water supply was worst of all, for the 
casks had most of them been destroyed by the English 
guns. The salt meat and fish were gone or spoilt. The 
rations were reduced to biscuit. Half a pound of biscuit, 



74 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 



a pint of water, and half a pint of wine were all that 
each person could be allowed. Men and officers fared 
alike ; and on this miserable diet, and unprovided with 
warm clothing, which they never needed in their own 
sunny lands, the crews of the Armada were about to 
face the cold and storms of the northern latitudes. 

They had brought with them many hundreds of 
mules and horses. They might have killed and eaten 
them, and so mitigated the famine. But they thought 
of nothing. The wretched animals were thrown over- 
board to save water, and the ships in the rear sailed 
on through floating carcases — a ghastly emblem of the 
general wreck. The Duke felt more than the officers 
gave him credit for. In a letter which he despatched 
to Philip on August 21, in a forlorn hope that it might 
reach Spain somehow, he described the necessity which 
had been found of cutting down the food, and the 
consequent suffering. 1 That alone would have been 
enough, for the men were wasting to a shadow of 
themselves, but besides there were three thousand sick 
with scurvy and dysentery, and thousands more with 
wounds uncured. 

But if he sympathised with the men's distresses he 
did not allow his sympathy to be seen. He knew that 
he was blamed for what had happened, that he was 



1 ' Por ser tan pocos los basti- 
mentos que se llevau, que, para 
que puedan durar un mes, y el 
agua, se han acortado las raciones 
generalmente sin exceptuar per- 
sona, porque no perezcan, dando 



se media libra de biscocho, y un 
cuartillo de agua, y medio de vino 
sin ninguna otra cosa, con que se 
va padeciendo lo que V.M. podra 
juzgar.' — Medina Sidonia to Philip, 
August 21. Duro, vol. ii. p. 226. 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 75 

distrusted and perhaps despised; and while keeping 
aloof from every one, he encouraged their resentment 
by deserving it. Many persons might have been in 
fault. But there is a time for all things, and those 
wretched days, wretched mainly through the Duke's 
own blunders, were not a time for severity; yet it 
pleased him, while secluded in his cabin, to order an 
inquiry into the conduct of the commanders who had 
lost their anchors at Calais, and had failed to support 
him in the action which followed. He accused them 
of cowardice. He held a court-martial on them and 
ordered twenty to be executed. Death with most was 
exchanged for degradation and imprisonment, but two 
poor wretches were selected on whom the sentence was 
to be carried out, as exceptionally culpable. When he 
had decided to fly, the Duke had ordered that the 
whole fleet should follow and not go in advance of 
the San Martin. A Captain Cuellar and a Captain 
Christobal de Avila had strayed for a few miles ahead, 
intending, as the Duke perhaps supposed, to desert. 
Don Christobal, to the disgust of the fleet, was executed 
with a parade of cruelty. He was hanged on the yard 
of a pinnace, which was sent round the squadrons with 
Don Christobal's body swinging upon it before it was 
thrown into the sea. Cuellar's fate was to have been 
the same. He commanded a galleon called the San 
Pedro. He had been in the action and had done his 
duty. His ship had been cut up. He himself had not 
slept for ten days, having been in every fight since the 
Armada entered the Channel. When all was over, and 



76 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

the strain had been taken off, he had dropped off ex- 
hausted. His sailing-master, finding the San Pedro 
leaking, had gone in advance to lay-to and examine 
her hurts. Exasperated at the disobedience to his 
directions, the Duke sent for Cuellar, refused to listen 
to his defence, and ordered him to be hanged. Don 
Francisco de Bobadilla with difficulty obtained his life 
for him, but he was deprived of his ship and sent under 
arrest to another galleon, to encounter, as will be seen, 
a singular adventure. 

The display of temper, added to the general con- 
viction of the Duke's unfitness for his place, may have 
been the cause of the dispersal of the Armada which 
immediately followed. The officers felt that they must 
shift for themselves. The fleet held together as far as 
the Orkneys. The intention was to hold a northerly 
course till the 6oth parallel. Assuming the wind to 
remain in the west, the pilots held that from this 
altitude the galleons could weather the Irish coast at 
sufficient distance to be out of danger — to weather Cape 
Clear, as they described it, but the Cape Clear which 
they meant — a glance at the map will show it — was 
not the point so mamed at present, but Clare Island, 
the extreme western point of Mayo. The high-built, 
broad and shallow galleons were all execrable sailers, 
but some sailed worse than others, and some were in 
worse condition than others. They passed the Orkneys 
together, and were then separated in a gale. The 
nights were lengthening, the days were thick and 
misty, and they lost sight of each other. Two or three 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 77 

went north as far as the Faroe Islands, suffering piti- 
fully from cold and hunger. Detachments, eight or ten 
together, made head as they could, working westward, 
against wind and sea, the men dying daily in hundreds. 
The San Martin, with sixty ships in company, kept far 
out into the Atlantic, and they rolled down towards the 
south dipping their mainyards in the tremendous seas. 
On August 21, the day on which the Duke wrote to 
Philip, they were two hundred miles west of Cape 
Wrath, amidst the tumult of the waters. - The Lord/ 
he said, ' had been pleased to send them a fortune 
different from that which they had looked for; but 
since the expedition had been undertaken from the 
beginning in the Lord's service, all doubtless had been 
ordered in the manner which would conduce most to 
the King's advantage and the Lord's honour and glory. 
The fleet had suffered so heavily that they had con- 
sidered the best thing whicL they could do would be to 
bring the remains of it home in safety. Their finest 
ships had been lost, their ammunition had been ex- 
hausted, and the enemy's fleet was too strong for what 
was left. The English guns were heavier than the 
Spanish; their sailing powers immeasurably superior. 
The sole advantage of the Spaniards was in small arms, 
and these they could not use, as the enemy refused to 
close. Thus, with the assent of the vice-admirals, he 
was making for home round the Scotch Isles. The 
food was short; the dead were many; the sick and 
wounded more. He himself could but pray that they 
might soon reach a port, as their lives depended on it/ 



78 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

This letter, though sent off out of the Western 
Ocean, did eventually reach the King's hands. Mean- 
while the weather grew wilder and wilder. The number 
of vessels which could bear up against the gales 
diminished daily, and one by one they fell to leeward 
on the fatal Irish shore. Leaving Medina Sidonia and 
the survivors which reached home along with him, the 
story must follow those which were unequal to the 
work required of them. The Spaniards were excellent 
seamen. They had navigated ships no worse than 
those which were lumbering through the Irish seas, 
among West Indian hurricanes and through the tern- 
pests at Cape Horn. But these poor wretches were 
but shadows of themselves; they had been poisoned 
at the outset with putrid provisions; they were now 
famished and sick, their vessels' sides torn to pieces 
by cannon-shot and leaking at a thousand holes, their 
wounded spars no longer able to bear the necessary 
canvas ; worst of all, their spirits broken. The super- 
stitious enthusiasm with which they started had turned 
into a fear that they were the objects of a malignant 
fate with which it was useless to struggle. Some had 
been driven among the Western Islands of Scotland ; 
the ships had been lost; the men who got on shore 
alive made their way to the Low Countries. But 
these were the few. Thirty or forty other vessels had 
attempted in scattered parties to beat their way into 
the open sea. But, in addition to hunger, the men 
were suffering fearfully for want of water, and perhaps 
forced the pilots either to make in for the land, or else 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 79 

to turn south before they had gained sufficient offing. 
Thus, one by one all these drove ashore, either on the 
coast of Sligo or Donegal, or in Clew Bay or Galway 
Bay, or the rocks of Clare and Kerry, and the wretched 
crews who escaped the waves found a fate only more 
miserable. The gentlemen and officers, soiled and 
battered though they were, carried on land such orna- 
ments as they possessed. The sailors and soldiers had 
received their pay at Corunna, and naturally took it 
with them in their pockets. The wild Irish were 
tempted by the plunder. The gold chains and ducats 
were too much for their humanity, and hundreds of 
half-drowned wretches were dragged out of the waves 
only to be stripped and knocked on the head, while 
those who escaped the Celtic skenes and axes, too 
weak and exhausted to defend themselves, fell into the 
hands of the English troops who were in garrison in 
Connaught. The more intelligent of the Irish chiefs 
hurried down to prevent their countrymen from dis- 
gracing themselves. They stopped the robbing and 
murdering, and a good many unfortunate victims found 
shelter in their castles. Such Spaniards as were taken 
prisoners by the English met a fate of which it is 
impossible to read without regret. Flung as they were 
upon the shore, ragged, starved, and unarmed, their 
condition might have moved the pity of less generous 
foes. But the age was not pitiful. Catholic fanaticism 
had declared war against what it called heresy, and the 
heretics had to defend their lives and liberties by such 
means as offered themselves. There might be. nothing 



80 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

to fear from the Spanish prisoners in their present 
extremity, but if allowed to recover and find protection 
from Irish hospitality, they might and would become 
eminently dangerous. The number of English was 
small, far too small, to enable them to guard two or 
three thousand men. With the exception, therefore, 
of one or two officers who were reserved for ransom, 
all that were captured were shot or hanged on the 
spot. 

The history of these unfortunates must be looked 
for in the English records rather than the Spanish. 
They never returned to Spain to tell their own story, 
and Captain Duro has little to say about them 
beyond what he has gathered from English writers. 
Among the documents published by him, however, 
there is an extraordinary narrative related by the 
Captain Cuellar who so nearly escaped hanging, a 
narrative which not only contains a clear account of 
the wreck of the galleons, but gives a unique and 
curious picture of the Ireland of the time. 

The scene of the greatest destruction among the 
ships of the Armada was Sligo Bay. It is easy to 
see why. The coast on the Mayo side of it trends 
away seventy miles to the west as far as Achill and 
Clare Island, and ships embayed there in heavy. south- 
westerly weather had no chance of escape. On one 
beach, five miles in length, Sir Jeffrey Fenton counted 
eleven hundred dead bodies, and the country people 
told him, 'the like was to be seen in other places/ 
Sir William Fitzwilliam saw broken timber from the 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. St 

wrecks lying between Sligo and Ballyshannon, ' suffi- 
cient to have built five of the largest ships in the 
world,' besides masts and spars and cordage, and boats 
bottom uppermost. Among the vessels which went 
ashore at this spot to form part of the ruin which Fitz- 
william was looking upon was a galleon belonging to 
the Levantine squadron, commanded by Don Martin de 
Aranda, to whose charge Cuellar had been committed 
when Bobaclilla saved him from the yard-arm. Don 
Martin, after an ineffectual struggle to double Achill 
Island, had fallen off before the wind and had anchored 
in Sligo Bay in a heavy sea with two other galleons. 
There they lay for four days, from the first to the fifth 
of September, when the gale rising, their cables parted, 
and all three drove on shore on a sandy beach among 
the rocks. Nowhere in the world does the sea break 
more violently than on that cruel shelterless strand. 
Two of the galleons went to pieces in an hour. The 
soldiers and sailors, too weak to struggle, were most 
of them rolled in the surf till they were dead and then 
washed up upon the shingle. Gentlemen and servants, 
nobles and common seamen, shared the same fate. 
Cuellar's ship had broken in two, but the forecastle 
held a little longer together than the rest, and Cuellar, 
clinging to it, watched his comrades being swept away 
and destroyed before his eyes. The wild Irish were 
down in hundreds stripping the bodies. Those who 
had come on shore with life in them fared no better. 
Some were knocked on the head, others had their 
clothes torn off and were left naked to perish of cold. 



82 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

Don Diego Enriquez, a high-born patrician, passed, 
with the Conde de Yillafranca and sixty-five others, 
into his ship's tender carrying bags of ducats and 
jewels. They went below, and fastened down the 
hatchway, hoping to be rolled alive on land. A huge 
wave turned the tender bottom upwards, and all who 
were in it were smothered. As the tide went back 
the Irish came with their axes and broke a hole open 
in search of plunder ; while Cuellar looked on speculat- 
ing how soon the same fate would be his own, and 
seeing the corpses of his comrades dragged out, stripped 
naked, and left to the wolves. His own turn came 
at last. He held on to the wreck till it was swept 
away, and he found himself in the water with a brother 
officer who had stuffed his pockets full of gold. He 
could not swim, but he caught a scuttle board as it 
floated by him and climbed up upon it. His com- 
panion tried to follow, but was washed off and drowned. 
Cuellar a few minutes later was tossed ashore, his leg 
badly cut by a blow from a spar in the surf. Drenched 
and bleeding as he was, he looked a miserable figure. 
The Irish, who were plundering the better dressed of 
the bodies, took no notice of him. He crawled along 
till he found a number of his countrymen who had 
been left with nothing but life, bare to their skins, and 
huddled together for warmth. Cuellar, who had still 
his clothes, though of course drenched, lay down among 
some rushes. A gentleman, worse off than he, for he 
was entirely naked, threw himself at his side too spent 
to speak. Two Irishmen came by with axes who, to 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 83 

Cuellar's surprise, cut some bushes, which they threw 
over them for a covering, and went on to join in the 
pillage on the shore. Cuellar, half dead from cold 
and hunger, fell asleep. He was woke by a troop of 
English horsemen galloping by for a share in the spoil. 
He called his comrade but found him dead, while all 
round the crows and wolves were busy over the naked 
carcases. Something like a monastery was visible not 
far off. Cuellar limped along till he reached it. He 
found it deserted. The roof of the chapel had been 
lately burnt. The images of the saints lay tumbled on 
the ground. In the nave twelve Spaniards were hang- 
ing from the rafters. The monks had fled to the 
mountains. 

Sick at the ghastly spectacle, he crept along a path 
through a wood, when he came upon an old woman 
who was hiding her cattle from the English. Her cabin 
was not far distant, but she made signs to him to keep 
off, as there were enemies in occupation there. Wander- 
ing hopelessly on, he fell in with two of his countrymen, 
naked and shivering. They were all famished, and 
they went back together to the sea, hoping to find 
some fragments of provisions washed on land. On the 
way they came on the body of Don Enriquez and 
stopped to scrape a hole in the sand and bury it. While 
they were thus employed a party of Irish came up, who 
pointed to a cluster of cabins and intimated that if they 
went there they would be taken care of. Cuellar was 
dead lame. His companions left him. At the first 
cottage which he reached, there was an old Irish 



84 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

'savage/ an Englishman, a Frenchman, and a girl. 
The Englishman struck at him with a knife and gave 
him a second wound. They stripped him to his shirt, 
took a gold chain from him, which they found concealed 
under it, and a purse of ducats. They would have 
left him en cueros, like the rest, without a rag upon 
him, had not the girl interposed, who affected to be 
a Christian, ' though she was no more a Christian than 
Mahomet.' The Frenchman proved to be an old sailor 
who had fought at Terceira. In him the Spanish 
captain found some human kindness, for he bound up 
his leg for him and gave him some oatcakes with butter 
and milk. The Frenchman then pointed to a ridge 
of distant mountains. There, he said, was the country 
of the O'Rourke, a great chief, who was a friend of the 
King of Spain. O'Rourke would take care of him; 
many of his comrades had already gone thither for pro- 
tection. With his strength something restored by the 
food, Cuellar crawled along, stick in hand. At night 
he stopped at a hut where there was a lad who could 
speak Latin. This boy talked with him, gave him 
supper and a bundle of straw to sleep upon. About 
midnight the boy's father and brother came in, loaded 
with plunder from the wrecks. They, too, did him no 
hurt, and sent him forward in the morning with a pony 
and a guide. English soldiers were about, sent, as 
he conjectured, probably with truth, to kill all the 
Spaniards they could fall in with. The first party that 
he met did not see him. With the second he was less 
fortunate. His guide saved his life by some means 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 85 

which Cuellar did not understand. But they beat him 
and took his shirt from him, the last of his garments 
that had been left. The boy and pony went off, and 
he thought then that the end was come, and prayed 
God to finish with him and take him to His mercy. 
Forlorn as he was, however, he rallied his courage, 
picked up a piece of old matting, and with this and 
some plaited ferns made a shift to cover himself : thus 
costumed he went on to a hamlet at the side of a lake ; 
the hovels of which it consisted were all empty; he 
entered the best-looking of them, found some fagots of 
oat-straw, and was looking about for a place to sleep 
among them, when three naked figures sprang suddenly 
up. He took them for devils, and in his extraordinary 
dress they thought the same of him ; but they proved 
to have belonged to the wrecked galleons ; one of them 
a naval officer, the other two soldiers. They explained 
mutually who they were, and then buried themselves 
in the oat-sheaves and slept. They remained there for 
warmth and concealment all the next day. At night, 
having wrapped themselves in straw, they walked on 
till they reached the dominions of the chief to whom 
they had been directed. O'Rourke himself was absent 
' fighting the English,' but his wife took them in, fed 
them, and allowed them to stay. As a particular 
favour she bestowed an old cloak upon Cuellar, which 
he found, however, to be swarming with lice. The 
hospitality was not excessive. A report reached him 
that a Spanish ship had put into Killybegs harbour, 
was refitting for sea, and was about to sail. He hurried 



86 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

down to join her, but she was gone. He learned after- 
wards that she had been wrecked and that all on board 
had perished. 

He was now like a hunted wolf. The English 
deputy had issued orders that every Spaniard in the 
country must be given up to the Government. The 
Irish did not betray Cuellar, but they did not care to 
risk their necks by giving him shelter, and he wandered 
about through the winter in Sligo and Donegal, meet- 
ing with many strange adventures. His first friend 
was a poor priest, who was performing his functions 
among the Irish, in spite of the law, disguised as a 
layman. From this man he met with help. He 
worked next as a journeyman with a blacksmith, whose 
wife was a brute. The priest delivered him from, these 
people, and carried him to a castle, which, from the 
description, appears to have been on Lough Erne, and 
here, for the first time, he met with hearty hospitality, 
in the Irish understanding of the term. The owner of 
the castle was a gentleman. He recognised an ally in 
every enemy of England. He took Cuellar into his 
troop of retainers, and dressed him in the saffron mantle 
of the Irish gallowglass. For some weeks he was now 
permitted to rest and recover himself, and he spent the 
time in learning the manners of the people. The 
chiefs wife was beautiful, unlike the blacksmith's, and 
the handsome and unfortunate Spanish officer was an 
interesting novelty. Besides the lady there were other 
girls in the castle, who came about him perhaps too 
ardently, asked him a thousand questions, and at 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 87 

length insisted that he should examine their hands and 
tell their fortunes. He had learnt palmistry from the 
gipsies in his own land. His invention was ready. 
He spoke Latin, which they could understand, and he 
gathered from their lips broken fragments of their own 
Irish. At length, with his art and his attractiveness, 
he gives the reader to understand that he was incon- 
veniently popular; men and women persecuted him 
with demands and attentions, and he had to throw 
himself on the protection of the chief himself. He 
describes the habits and character of the people as if he 
was writing of a fresh discovered island in the New 
World. 

They lived, he said, like mere savages about the 
mountains. Their dwelling-places were thatched hovels. 
The men were large-limbed, well-shaped, and light as 
stags (sueltos como corzos). They took but one meal a 
day, and that at night. Their chief food was oatmeal 
and butter ; their drink sour milk, for want of any thing- 
better, and never water, though they had the best in 
the world. The usquebaugh Cuellar does not mention. 
On feast days they dined on undone boiled meat, which 
they ate without bread or salt. The costume of the 
men was a pair of tight-fitting breeches with a goatskin 
jacket; over this a long mantle. Their hair they 
wore low over their eyes. They were strong on their 
legs, could walk great distances, and were hardy and 
enduring. They, or such of them as he had known, 
paid no obedience to the English. They were sur- 
rounded by swamps and bogs, which kept the English 



88 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

at a distance, and there was constant war between 
the races. Even among themselves they were famous 
thieves. They robbed from each other, and every day 
there was fighting. If one of them knew that his 
neighbour had sheep or cow, he would be out at night 
to steal it, and kill the owner. Occasionally a fortunate ' 
robber would have collected large herds and flocks, and 
then the English would come down on him. and he had 
to fly to the hills with wife, and children, and stock. 
Sheep and cattle were their only form of property. 
They had no clothes and no furniture. They slept on 
the ground on a bed of rushes, cut fresh as they wanted 
them, wet with rain or stiff with frost. The women 
were pretty, but ill dressed. A shift or a mantle, and 
a handkerchief knotted in front over the forehead, 
made their whole toilet ; and on the women was thrown 
all the homework, which, after a fashion, they managed 
to do. The Irish professed to be Christians. Mass was 
said after the Roman rule. Their churches and houses 
of religion had been destroyed by the English, or 
by such of their own countrymen as had joined the 
English. In short, they were a wild lawless race, and 
every one did as he liked. They wished well to the 
Spaniards because they knew them to be enemies of 
the English heretics, and had it not been for the 
friendliness which they had shown, not one of those 
who had come on shore would have survived. It was 
true at first they plundered and stripped them naked, and 
fine spoils they got out of the thirteen galleons which 
were wrecked in that part of the country ; but as soon 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 89 

as they saw that the Spaniards were being killed by 
the English, they began to take care of them. 

Such was Cuellar's general picture, very like wha^. 
was drawn by the intruding Saxon, and has been 
denounced as calumny. Cuellar was, at any rate, im- 
partial, and rather liked his hosts than otherwise. The 
Lord Deputy was alarmed at the number of fugitives 
who were said to be surviving. As the orders to 
surrender them had not been attended to, he collected 
a force in Dublin and went in person into the West 
to enforce obedience. Cuellar's entertainer had been 
especially menaced, and had to tell his guests that he 
could help them no farther. He must leave his castle 
and retreat himself with his family into the mountains, 
and the Spaniards must take care of themselves. 
Cuellar calls the castle Manglana ; local antiquaries 
may be able to identify the spot. It stood on a 
promontory projecting into a long, deep, and broad 
lake, and was covered on the land side by a swamp. 
It could not be taken without boats or artillery, and 
the Spaniards offered to remain and defend it if the 
chief would leave them a few muskets and powder, 
with food for a couple of months. There were nine of 
them. The chief agreed, and let them have what they 
wanted; and, unless Cuellar lies, he and his friends 
held ' Manglana ' for a fortnight against a force of 
eighteen hundred English, when God came to their 
help by sending such weather that the enemy could 
not any longer keep the field. 

The chief, finding the value of such auxiliaries, 



go THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

wished to keep them permanently at his side, and 
offered Cuellar his sister for a wife. Cuellar, however, 
was longing for home. He supposed that if he could 
reach Scotland he could cross easily from thence to 
Flanders. One night after Christmas he slipped away 
and made for Antrim, travelling, seemingly, only in the 
dark, and hiding during the day. He was in constant 
danger, as the tracks were watched, and suspected 
persons were seized and searched. He got as far as the 
Giant's Causeway ; there he heard particulars of the 
wreck of the ship which he had tried to join at Killy- 
begs. It was a galeass with Alonzo de Leyva on board 
and two or three hundred others with him. They were 
all dead, and Cuellar saw the relics of them which the 
people had collected on the shore. Alonzo de Leyva 
was the best loved of all the Spaniards in the fleet, and 
the sight of the spot where he had perished was a fresh 
distress. He was afraid to approach a port lest he 
should be seized and hanged. For six weeks he was 
hid away by some women, and after that by a bishop, 
who was a good Christian, though dressed like a savage. 
This bishop had a dozen Spaniards with him, fed, 
clothed, and said Mass for them, and at last found a 
boat to carry them across the Channel. They went, 
and after a three days' struggle with the sea contrived 
to land in Argyllshire. They had been led to hope for 
help from James. Cuellar says that they were entirely 
mistaken. James never gave them a bawbee, and 
would have handed them over to the English if he had 
not been afraid of the resentment of the Scotch Catholic 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 91 

nobles. The Calvinist Lowlanders showed them scanty 
hospitality. The Prince of Parma was informed of their 
condition, and agreed with a Flemish merchant to 
bring over to him all the Spaniards, now numerous, who 
were on Scotch soil, at five ducats a head. Even yet 
misfortune had not tired of persecuting them. In 
their passage they were chased and fired on by a Dutch 
frigate. They had to run ashore, where they were 
intercepted by the Hollanders, and all but Cuellar and 
two of his companions were killed. 

So ends the Spanish captain's story. The wide 
calamities involving multitudes are but the aggregate 
of the sufferings of each individual of whom the multi- 
tude is composed. Cuellar came off luckily compared 
with most of his companions. Each of the twenty-nine 
thousand men who sailed in July from Corunna would 
have had to relate a tale of misery at least as pitiful as 
his, and the worst of all was that no one's neck was 
wrung for it. 

The sixty galleons which remained with the Duke 
till the end of August were parted again by a south- 
westerly gale, off the point of Kerry. The Duke him- 
self passed so far out to sea that he did not see the 
Irish coast at all. Recalde, with two large ships besides 
his own, had come round Dunmore Head, near the land. 
His crews were dying for want of water. He seems to 
have known Dingle. Dr. Sanders, with the Pope's con- 
tingent, had landed there eight years before, and a 
statement in an account of Recalde's life that he had 
once carried a thousand men to the coast of Ireland, 



92 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

refers probably to that occasion. At all events, he was 
aware that there was a harbour in Dingle Bay, and he 
made for it with his consorts. One of them, ' Our Lady 
of the Rosary,' was wrecked in Blasket Sound. She 
carried seven hundred men when she sailed out of Lis- 
bon. Two hundred out of the seven were alive in her 
when she struck the rock, and every one of them 
perished, save a single lad. Recalde, with the other 
galleon, anchored in the Dingle estuary, and sent in to 
the town a passionate entreaty to be allowed to fill his 
water-casks. The fate of the Papal troops, who had 
been all executed a few miles off, had so frightened the 
Irish there that they did not dare to consent. The 
English account states that Recalde had to sail as he 
was, to live or die. The belief in Spain was that he 
took the water that he wanted by force. Perhaps the 
inhabitants were not entirely inhuman, and did not in- 
terfere. He saved the lives for the moment of the 
wretched men under his charge, though most of them 
perished when they reached their homes; he brought 
back his ship to Corunna, and there died himself two 
days after his arrival, worn out by shame and misery. 

Oquendo also reached Spain alive. The persevering 
west winds drove him down the Bay of Biscay, and he 
made his way into St. Sebastian, where he had a wife and 
children : but he refused to see them ; he shut himself 
into a solitary room, turned his face to the wall, and 
ended like Recalde, unable to outlive the disgrace of the 
gallant navy which he had led so often into victory. 
They had done all that men could do. On the miser- 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 93 

able day when their commander decided to turn his back 
and fly they would have forced him upon a more 
honourable course, and given the forlorn adventure an 
issue less utterly ignominious. But their advice had 
been rejected. They had sailed away from an enemy 
whose strength at most was not greater than theirs. 
They had escaped from a battle with a human foe to a 
more fatal war with the elements, and they had seen 
their comrades perish round them, victims of folly and 
weakness. The tremendous catastrophe broke their 
hearts, and they lay down and died. Oquendo's ' Capi- 
tana ' had been blown up after the fight at Plymouth. 
By a strange fatality the ship which brought him home 
blew up also in the harbour at St, Sebastian. The ex- 
plosion may have been the last sound which reached 
his failing sense. The stragglers came in one by one ; 
sixty- five ships only of the hundred and thirty who, in 
July, had sailed out of Corunna full of hope and enthu- 
siasm. In those hundred and thirty had been twenty- 
nine thousand human creatures, freshly dedicated to 
what they called the service of their Lord. Nine or ten 
thousand only returned ; a ragged remnant, shadows of 
themselves, sinking under famine and fever and scurvy, 
which carried them off like sheep with the rot. When 
they had again touched Spanish soil, a wail of grief rose 
over the whole peninsula, as of Rachel weeping for her 
children ; yet above it all rose the cry, Where was 
Alonzo de Ley va ? Where was the flower of Spanish 
chivalry ? Cuellar knew his fate ; but Cuellar was with 
his Irish chief far away. Weeks, even months, passed 



94 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

before certain news arrived, and rumour invented ima- 
ginary glories for him. He had rallied the missing 
galleons, he had fallen in with Drake, had beaten and 
captured him, and had sunk half the English fleet. 
Vain delusion ! De Leyva, like Oquendo and Recalde,. 
had done all which could be done by man, and God had 
not interposed to help him. He had fought his * Rata 
Coronada ' till her spars were shot away and her timbers 
pierced like a sieve. She became water-logged in the 
gales on the Irish coast. A second galleon and a surviv- 
ing galeass were in his company. The 'Rata' and the 
galleon drove ashore. De Leyva, in the galeass, made 
Killybegs harbour, and landed there with fourteen hun- 
dred men. It was the country of the O'Neil. They 
were treated with the generous warmth which became 
the greatest of the Irish chieftains. But their presence 
was known in Dublin. O'Neil was threatened, and De 
Leyva honourably refused to be an occasion of danger 
to him. He repaired the galeass at Killybegs. The 
October weather appeared to have settled at last, and 
he started again with as many of his people as the 
galeass would carry to make the coast of Scotland. She 
had passed round the north of Donegal, she had kept 
along the land and had almost reached the Giant's 
Causeway, when she struck a rock and went to pieces, 
and De Leyva and his companions went the way of the 
rest. 

The men who came back seemed as if they had 
been smitten by a stroke from which they could 
not rally. One of them describes pathetically the de- 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 95 

light with which, after those desperate storms, and 
hunger and cold and thirst, they felt the warmth of the 
Spanish sun again ; saw Spanish grapes in the gardens 
at Santander, and the fruit hanging on the trees ; had 
pure bread to eat and pure water to drink. But the 
change brought no return of health. For the first 
weeks they were left on board their ships, no prepara- 
tion on shore having been made to receive them. 
When the mortality was found rather to increase than 
diminish, they were moved to hospitals, but they died 
still by hundreds daily, as if destiny or Providence was 
determined to sweep of! the earth every innocent rem- 
nant of the shattered expedition, while those who were 
really to blame escaped unpunished. 

Medina Sidonia had been charged by Philip to 
report his progress to him as often as messengers could 
be sent off. He had written when off the Lizard before 
his first contact with the enemy. He had written again 
on August 21 among the Atlantic rollers, when he be- 
lieved that he was bringing home his charge at least safe 
if not victorious. On September 22 he arrived at San- 
tander, and on the 23rd reported briefly the close of the 
tragedy so far as it was then known to him. The 
weather, he said, had been terrible since he last wrote. 
Sixty-one vessels were then with him. They had held 
tolerably well together till September 18, when they 
were caught in another gale, and fifty of them had gone 
he knew not where. Eleven only had remained with 
himself. They had made the coast near Corunna, and 
had signalled for help, but none had come off. They 



96 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

had then struggled on to Santander and were lying 
there at anchor. He had himself gone on shore, being 
broken down by suffering. The miseries which they 
had experienced had exceeded the worst that had ever 
before been heard of. In some ships there had not 
been a drop of water for fourteen days. A hundred and 
eighty of the crew of the ' San Martin ' had died, the 
rest were down with putrid fever. Of his personal 
attendants all were dead but two. There was not food 
enough left on board for those who were alive to last 
two days. The Duke ' blessed the Lord for all that He 
had ordained ; ' but prayed the King to see instantly to 
their condition, and to send them money, for they had 
not a maravedi in the fleet. He was himself too ill to 
do anything. There was no person whose duty it was 
to help them, neither inspector, purveyor, nor pay- 
master. They could obtain nothing that they wanted. 
He had written to the Archbishop of Burgos for assist- 
ance in establishing a hospital. 1 

The opinion in Spain was savagely hostile- to the 
Duke. It was thought that if he had possessed the feel- 
ings of a gentleman, he would have died of the disgrace 
like Oquendo and Recalde. The Duke, so far from feel- 
ing that he was himself to blame, considered that he 
above the rest had most reason to complain of having 
been forced into a position which he had not sought and 
for which he had protested his unfitness. Being Lord 
High Admiral, his business was to remain with the 



1 The Duke of Medina Sidonia to Philip, September 23, from Santanderv 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 97 

fleet, however ill he might be, till some other respon- 
sible officer could be sent to relieve him. His one 
desire was to escape from the sight of ships and 
everything belonging to them, and hide himself and 
recover his spirits in his palace at San Lucar. Not 
Sancho, when he left his island, could be in greater 
haste to rid himself of his office and all belonging to it. 
On September 27, before an answer could arrive 
from Philip, he wrote again to Secretary Idiaquez. 
Almost all the sailors were dead, lie said. Many of the 
ships were dismasted ; no one could believe the state in 
which they were. Idiaquez must look to it. For him- 
self, his health was broken ; he was unfit for further 
duty, and even if he was perfectly well he would never 
go on shipboard again. He was absolutely without any 
knowledge either of navigation or of war, and the King 
could have no object in forcing him to continue in a 
service from which the State could derive no possible 
advantage. He begged that he might be thought of 
no more in connection with the navy, and that, since 
the Lord had not been pleased to call him to that voca- 
tion, he might not be compelled to return in a situation 
of which he could not, as he had many times explained, 
conscientiously discharge the duties. His Majesty, he 
said, could not surely wish the destruction of a faithful 
subject. With sea affairs he neither could nor would 
meddle any further, though it should cost him his head. 1 



1 ' En las cosas de la mer, por ningun caso ni por alguna via tratare 
dellas, aunque me costase la cabeza. ' 

H 



98 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

Better so than fail in an office of the duties of which he 
was ignorant, and where he had to be guided by the 
advice of others, in whose honesty of intention he could 
feel no confidence. 

The last allusion was of course to Diego Flore z, on 
whom, since it was necessary to punish some one, the 
blame was allowed to fall. In justice, if justice was to 
have a voice in the matter, the person really guilty was 
Don Philip. Of the subordinates, Diego Florez was 
probably the most in fault, and he was imprisoned in 
the Castle of Burgos. For the rest, Philip was singu- 
larly patient, his conscience perhaps telling him that if 
he was to demand a strict account he would have to 
begin with himself. The popular story of the com- 
posure with which he heard of the fate of the Armada 
is substantially true, though rather too dramatically 
pointed. The awful extent of the catastrophe became 
known to him only by degrees, and the end of Alonzo 
de Leyva, which distressed him most of all, he only 
heard of at Christmas. 

To the Duke's letter he replied quietly and affec- 
tionately, without a syllable of reproach. Unlike 
Elizabeth, who left the gallant seamen who had saved 
her throne to die of want and disease in the streets of 
Margate, and had to be reminded that the pay of those 
who had been killed in her service was still due to their 
relations, Philip ordered clothes, food, medicine, every- 
thing that was needed, to be sent down in hottest haste 
to Corunna and Santander. The widows and orphans 
of the dead sailors and soldiers were sought out and 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 99 

pensioned at the cost of the State. To Medina Sidonia 
he sent the permission which the Duke had asked for, 
to leave the fleet and go home. He could not in fair- 
ness have blamed the commander-in-chief for having 
failed in a situation for which he had protested his 
incompetence. The fault of Philip as a king and 
statesman was a belief in his own ability to manage 
things. In sending out the Armada he had set in 
motion a mighty force, not intending it to be used 
mightily, but that he might accomplish with it what he 
regarded as a master-stroke of tame policy. He had 
selected Medina Sidonia as an instrument who would do 
what he was told and would make no rash experiments. 
And the effect was to light a powder-magazine which 
blew to pieces the naval power of Spain. It is to his 
credit, however, that he did not wreak his disappoint- 
ment upon his instruments, and endured patiently what 
had befallen him as the Will of God. The Will of 
God, indeed, created a difficulty. The world had been 
informed so loudly that the Armada was going on the 
Lord's work, the prayers of the Church had been so- 
lono- and so enthusiastic, and a confidence in what the 
Lord was to do had been generated so universally, that 
when the Lord had not done it, there was at once a 
necessity for acknowledging the judgment, and embar- 
rassment in deciding the terms in which the truth 
was to be acknowledged. Philip's formal piety pro- 
vided a solution which might have been missed 
by a more powerful intellect, and on the 13th of 
October the following curious letter was addressed by 



ioo THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

him to the bishops and archbishops throughout his 
dominions : — 

Most Reverend, — The uncertainties of naval enterprises are 
well known, and the fate which has befallen the Armada is an 
instance in point. You will have already heard that the Duke of 
Medina Sidonia has returned to Santander, bringing back with 
him part of the fleet. Others of the ships have reached various 
ports, some of them having suffered severely from their long and 
arduous voyage. We are bound to give praise to God for all 
things which He is pleased to do. I on the present occasion 
have given thanks to Him for the mercy which He has shown. 
In the foul weather and violent storms to which the Armada has 
been exposed, it might have experienced a worse fate ; and that 
the misfortune has not been heavier is no doubt due to the 
prayers which have been offered in its behalf so devoutly and 
continuously. 

These prayers must have entailed serious expense and trouble 
on those who have conducted them. I wish you, therefore, all to 
understand that while I am, so far, well pleased with your exer- 
tions, they may now cease. You may wind up in the cathedrals 
and churches of your dioceses with a solemn Thanksgiving Mass 
on any day which you may appoint, and for the future I desire 
all ecclesiastics and other devout persons to continue to commend 
my actions to the Lord in their secret devotions, that He may so 
direct them as shall be for His own service, the exaltation of His 
Church, the welfare and safety of Christendom, which are the 
objects always before me. 

From the Escurial : October 13, 1588. 1 

Medina Sidonia reconsidered his resolution to have 
no more to do with ships and righting. He was con- 
tinued in his office of Lord High Admiral; be was 
again appointed Governor of Cadiz, and he had a second 
opportunity of measuring himself against English sea- 
men, with the same result as before. Essex went into 



Duro, vol. ii. p. 314. 



THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 101 

Cadiz in 1596, as Drake had gone in 1587. The Duke 
acted in the same manner, and withdrew to Seville to 
seek for reinforcements. He ventured back only after 
the English had gone, and was again thanked by his 
master for his zeal and courage. As if this was not 
enough, Philip, in 1598, raised him to the rank of 
Consejero altisimo de Estado y Guerra, Supreme Coun- 
cillor in Politics and War. Who can wonder that under 
such a King the Spanish Empire went to wreck ? 

The people were less enduring. Clamours were 
raised that he had deserted the fleet at Santander, 
that he had shown cowardice in action, that he had 
neglected the counsels of his wisest admirals, that he 
was as heartless as he was incapable, and that, leaving 
the seamen and soldiers to die, he had hastened home 
to his luxuries at San Lucar. In reality he had gone 
with the King's permission, because he was useless and 
was better out of the way. He was accused of having 
carried off with him a train of mules loaded with ducats. 
He had told Philip that he had not brought home a 
maravedi, and if he had really taken money he would 
have done it less ostentatiously and with precautions 
for secrecy. 

But nothing could excuse him to Spain. Every 
calumny found credit. He had shown 'cobardia y 
continual pavor y miedo de morir, avaricia, dureza y 
crueldad' — cowardice, constant terror and fear of death, 
avarice, harshness, and cruelty. His real faults were 
enough without piling others on him of which he was 
probably innocent. With or without his will, he had 



102 THE SPANISH STORY OF THE ARMADA. 

been in the thickest and hottest parts of the hardest 
engagements, and the ' San Martin ' had suffered as 
severely as any ship in the fleet. He knew nothing of 
the work which he was sent to do ; that is probably the 
worst which can justly be said of him ; and he had not 
sought an appointment for which he knew that he was 
unfit. But an officer who tried to defend him was 
obliged to admit that it would have been happy for his 
country if the Duke had never been born ; that he 
threw away every chance which was offered him, and 
that he talked and consulted when acts and not words 
were wanted. 

His journey home across Castile was a procession of 
ignominy. The street boys in Salamanca and Medina 
del Campo pelted him with stones; crowds shouted 
after him 'A las gallinas, a las almadradas' — ' To the 
hens and the tunnies ' — the tunnies being the fattest 
and the most timid of fish, and the tunny fishing being 
a monopoly of his dukedom. He was told that he had 
disgraced his illustrious ancestors, and that had he 
the spirit of a man he would not have outlived his 
shame. 

History does not record the reception which he met 
with from his wife when he reached his palace. 



ANTONIO PEREZ : AN UNSOLVED 
HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 1 



ONE day early in the spring of the year 1590, while 
Spain was still bleeding from the destruction of the 
Great Armada, Mass was being sung in the church of 
the Dominican convent at Madrid. The candles were 
burning, the organ was pealing, the acolytes were 
swinging the censers, and the King's confessor was 
before the altar in his robes, when a woman, meanly 
dressed, rushed forward amidst the fumes of the 
incense. Turning to the priest, she said : ' Justice ! 
I demand justice ; I demand that you hear me ! Are 
you deaf, that I come so often to you and you will not 
listen ? -Then I appeal to One who will listen ; I appeal 
to Thee my God who art here present ; I call on God 
to be my witness and my judge ; He knows the wrongs 
which I suffer. Let Him punish yonder man who is 
my oppressor/ 

The confessor turned pale as death. He stood 



1 Nineteenth Century, April, May, 1883. 



104 ANTONIO PEREZ: 

speechless for a few moments. He then beckoned to 
the attendants. ' Bid the lady prioress come hither/ 
he said, ' and the sisterhood, and this woman's 
sister, who is one of them. Say I require their 
presence/ 

The lady mother came fluttering with her flock 
behind her. They gathered to the grating which 
divided the chancel from the convent precincts. 

' Holy mother/ the confessor said, ' this lady here 
present charges me on my soul and conscience. She 
calls on God to judge her cause, and she clamours for 
redress. I do not wonder ; I should wonder rather if 
she held her peace. But what can I do that I have 
left undone ? I have told the King that it is his duty 
to despatch the business of the lady's husband and 
restore him to his family ; what would she have from 
me more ? ' 

'I would have this much more, serior/ the lady 
replied. ' If the King will not do what you command 
him, refuse him absolution and withdraw to your cell. 
You will be nearer heaven there, than where you now 
stand. As the King's confessor you are his judge. 
The King is the offender; I am the injured woman 
of St. Luke's Gospel. The King may wear the crown 
on his head ; but you are higher than he/ 

The confessor could not answer her. 

The scene shifts to the reception hall of Rodrigo 
Vasquez, the President of the High Court of Justice. 
The president was a grave, dignified man, seventy years 
old. Before him stood a family of children, the eldest 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 105 

a girl of sixteen, the little ones holding her hands or 
clinging to her dress. 

The girl did not seem daunted by the presence 
in which she stood. 'Your lordship/ she said, 'has 
promised us this, that, and the other; you tell us 
one day that something shall be done on the morrow, 
and then the next, and the next, as if a last " morrow " 
there would never be. You have brought our home 
to desolation. You have deceived a girl like me, and 
you think it a grand victory, a glorious distinction. 
You thirst, it seems, for our blood; well, then, you 
shall have it. Old men, it is said, go again to the 
breast for milk to keep the life in them. You require 
blood, fresh from the veins of its owners. We had 
rather not be swallowed piecemeal, so we are come 
all to you together. You perhaps would prefer to 
linger over us, but we cannot wait. Let your lordship 
make an end with us. Here we are.' 

Don Rodrigo started out of his chair. He marched 
up the hall, and down, and then to the four corners. He 
twisted his fingers, he crossed his arms. He appealed to 
an old aunt and uncle who had brought the children. 

' Senora, senor/ he said, ' I beseech you make that 
young woman hold her peace, and say no more/ 

The young woman would not hold her peace. 

1 Pray sit down, your lordship,' she said ; ' pray be 
calm. We are young; some of us were born, so to 
say, but yesterday. But you have made our lives a 
burden to us. Finish the work; take our blood, and 
let our souls depart from this miserable prison.' 



io6 ANTONIO PEREZ: 

These two incidents, if the children's father wrote 
the truth, happened precisely as I have described thexn, 
and are as literal facts as usually pass for history. 
Perhaps they are not exaggerated at all. The priest 
in the Dominican convent was Diego de Chaves, 
spiritual adviser to Philip the Second. The woman 
before the altar was Juana de Coello, wife of Antonio 
Perez, his Majesty's Secretary of State and confidential 
minister. The girl in the Court of Justice was his 
daughter Dona Gregoria, and the little ones were her 
brothers and sisters. 

What strange cause could have wrought a mother 
and child into a state of passion so unnatural ? 

For three centuries after the Reformation, Philip 
the Second was the evil demon of Protestant tradition. 
Every action which could be traced to him was ascribed 
to the darkest motives. He was like some ogre or 
black enchanter sitting in his den in the Escurial, 
weaving plots for the misery of mankind, in close 
communion and correspondence with his master the 
Antichrist of Rome. He was the sworn enemy of the 
light which was rising over Europe ; he was the assassin 
of his subjects abroad ; he was a tyrant at home, and 
even in his own household ; he was believed universally 
to have murdered his own son, and if not to have 
murdered his wife, to have driven her to death with 
a broken heart. The Inquisition was his favourite 
instrument, and his name has been handed down 
through modern history by the side of the most 
detestable monsters who ever disgraced a throne. 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 107 

All this violence of censure was perfectly natural. 
Men engaged in a deadly struggle for what they regard 
as a sacred cause are seldom charitable to their adver- 
saries. It was the Spanish power indisputably which 
stemmed the - Reformation, and more than once was 
near extinguishing it. The conflict was desperate and 
at last savage, and deeds were done which have left 
a stain on all who were concerned in them. 

Bat as time has gone on, and as it has appeared 
that neither Lutheranism nor Calvinism nor Anglican- 
ism can be regarded as a final revelation, we have been 
able to review the history of the sixteenth century in 
a calmer temper. For a thousand years the doctrines 
of the Catholic Church had been guarded by the civil 
power as the most precious of human possessions. 
New ideas on such subjects, shaking as they do the 
foundations of human society, may be legitimately 
resisted on their first appearance from better motives 
than hatred of truth; and although, in a strife so 
protracted and so deadly, evil passions dressed them- 
selves in sacred colours, and crimes were committed 
which we may legitimately assign to the devil, yet 
it has been recognised that, on fair grounds of principle, 
right-thinking men might. naturally have taken opposite 
sides, and that Catholics as well as Protestants might 
have been acting on conscientious convictions. The 
dust has settled a little, the spiritual atmosphere has 
cleared itself, and among the consequences the cloud 
which hung over Philip the Second has partially lifted. 
The countrymen of Cervantes were not a nation of 



108 ANTONIO PEREZ: 

mere bigots; yet it is clear that the whole Spanish 
people went with the King enthusiastically in defence 
of the Church, and complained only when his pi4 de 
plomo, his foot of lead that he was so proud of, would 
not move fast enough. The romance of Don Carlos 
has efone into the air of which it was made. Don 
Carlos is known now to have been a dangerous lunatic, 
whom it was necessary to cage like a wild animal ; the 
exact manner of his death is unknown ; but his father 
acted throughout by the advice of the Council of State, 
and it was by their advice also that so distressing a 
secret was concealed from public curiosity. As we look 
at Philip with more impartial attention, the figure 
comes out before us of a painstaking, laborious man, 
prejudiced, narrow-minded, superstitious, with a conceit 
of his own abilities not uncommon in crowned heads, 
and frequently with less justification, but conscientious 
from his own point of view, and not without the 
feelings of a gentleman. 

I purpose to reconstruct on these more tolerant 
lines the story of the relations between Philip the 
Second and Antonio Perez which have so long per- 
plexed historical inquirers — on the surface a mere palace 
intrigue, but developing from its peculiar features into 
a nine days 5 wonder throughout Europe, and occasion- 
ing, if not causing, the overthrow of the constitutional 
liberties of Aragon. 

Students of the history of the sixteenth century 
must be familiar with the name of Gonzalo Perez. 
He was State Secretary to Charles the Fifth, and his 






AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 109 

signature stands at the bottom of the page on thousands 
of Charles's despatches which are now extant. When 
the Emperor abdicated, Gonzalo remained in office with 
Philip, and had been forty years in the public service 
when he died. Antonio Perez passed as Gonzalo's 
natural son. He was born in 1542, and was legitimat- 
ised immediately by an Imperial diploma. There were 
those who said, and spoke of it as notorious, that 
Antonio was not Gonzalo's son at all, but the son 
of Ruy Gomez, Prince of Eboli and Duke of Pastrana, 
Philip's favourite minister. Ruy Gomez, at any rate, 
took charge of the boy, removed him from school, 
brought him up in his own family, and introduced 
him into a public department. Being quick and 
brilliant, he was rapidly promoted; and when Ruy 
Gomez died in 1567 he left Antonio, at the age of 
twenty-five, chief secretary to the Council of State 
with a salary of four thousand ducats a year, in addition 
to which, and as a sinecure, he was Protonotary of 
Sicily with two thousand ducats a year. A rise so 
swift implied extraordinary private influence, or extra- 
ordinary personal qualities; and this was but the 
beginning of his fortunes. On losing Ruy Gomez, 
Philip took Perez as his own confidential secretary; 
and along with him another youth, Juan de Escovedo, 
who had also been a pupil of Ruy Gomez, and had 
been brought up at Perez's side. The two young 
men had been, and still continued, intimate personal 
friends. 

The Spanish administration was divided into separate 



no ANTONIO PEREZ: 

councils, the secretaries of which were each in close 
relation with the King, who insisted on knowing all 
that was going on. Besides these there were the 
secretaries who deciphered despatches, who were thus 
admitted into State mysteries and were necessarily 
treated with confidence. But of the whole number 
Antonio Perez and Escovedo were nearest to the Kin^, 
and Perez the closer of the two. He and he alone 
was admitted into the interior labyrinths of Philip's 
mind. 

He was thus a person of extraordinary consequence. 
He was courted by great men in Church and State. 
The Italian princes sent him presents to advance their 
interests. He was the dispenser of royal favours. He 
treated dukes as his equals, and the splendour in which 
he lived was envied and criticised ; but his legitimate 
income was considerable ; in all countries in that aoe 
influential statesmen accepted homage in the shape 
of offerings; and, considering the opportunities the 
favoured secretary had, he does not seem to have 
exceptionally abused them. 

Perez being thus upon the stage, we introduce a 
more considerable figure, Don John of Austria, the 
King's brother, illegitimate son of Charles the Fifth. 
An illegitimate prince is always in a delicate position, 
especially when his father happens to have brought 
him up as a real one. He is of royal blood, but with- 
out the rights belonging to it. He is uncertain of 
his rank, and may generally be presumed to be dis- 
contented. But Philip had shown no suspicion of his 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. in 

brother. He had trusted him, employed him, refused 
him no opportunities which he could have desired had 
he come more regularly into the world. Don John 
was chivalrous, ardent, ambitious. He had every 
quality which promised distinction, if in his youth he 
had been wisely guided. Ruy Gomez had furnished 
him with a secretary supposed to be prudence itself, 
Juan de Soto, who had been trained in the War Office. 
Thus accompanied, when the Moors broke into insurrec- 
tion, Don John was sent to Granada to reduce them. 
He did his work well ; he became a popular favourite, 
and went next to command the allied Catholic fleet in 
the Mediterranean. De Soto only had given imperfect 
satisfaction. Don John had high-flying views for 
himself, and De Soto, it was feared, had not sufficiently 
discouraged them. Perez and Escovedo were instructed 
to give him an admonition, which they did, and with 
this friendly warning Don John and his secretary went 
their way into Italy. The battle of Lepanto followed, 
and the young irregular Spanish prince blazed out into 
a hero of romance. Philip was a faithful son of the 
Church, and of the Pope in his spiritual capacity ; but 
he was King of Naples and Sicily, with interests in the 
Peninsula not always identical with the interests of 
the court of Rome. Pius the Fifth, who had just then 
absolved England from its allegiance to Queen Elizabeth, 
and believed it his mission to sweep away heresy, 
found in Don John a child much nearer to his heart. 
Don John was to be the Church's knight, the chosen 
soldier of the Lord, and immediately after Lepanto 



112 ANTONIO PEREZ: 

Pius had formed views for constituting him an 
independent sovereign. Tunis was to be the first scene 
of his greatness. The Emperor Charles had won 
immortal glory in his African campaign. De Soto had 
studied history and dreamt of the possibility of reviving 
the Carthaginian empire. Don John, set on by the 
Pope, re -fortified the Goleta, and transported on his 
own authority, out of Italy, the best part of the Spanish 
troops there, while the Papal Nuncio at Madrid 
requested Philip in Pope Pius's name to allow his 
brother to take the title of King of Tunis. The 
Spanish council knew better than his Holiness the 
value of the Emperor's African conquests. They had 
been a drain upon the treasury and the grave of 
thousands of their bravest men. Instead of indulging 
Don John they sent orders that the fortresses should be 
demolished and the troops withdrawn. But the order 
came too late. The Goleta was assaulted by the Turks 
in overwhelming numbers, and the garrison was cut off 
to a man. Philip had good reason to be displeased. 
The independent action of a commander cannot expect 
to be regarded, when unsuccessful, with especial 
leniency, nor were matters mended by the signs which 
his brother was manifesting of a restless ambition. He 
replied politely to the Pope, however, that the establish- 
ment of a kingdom in Tunis was not at the time 
expedient. He found no fault with Don John, but laid 
the blame on bad advisers. He gently removed De 
Soto, leaving him as commissary-general of the army ; 
and secretary Escovedo, who had been especially 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 113 

eloquent in the cabinet on De Soto's rashness, was 
sent to take his place as a safer companion to the 
prince. 

Philip, however, was again unfortunate. The mis- 
chance at the Goleta had not been sufficient to dim the 
glories of Lepanto, or cool the hopes which so brilliant 
a victory had inspired. Don John was still persuaded 
that there were great things in store for him. It 
seemed as if he had an especial power of turning the 
heads of the secretaries, and Escovedo himself was soon 
embarked with him in a yet wilder scheme, to which 
the Pope and the Fates were beckoning the way. 

After a struggle of ten years with his revolted 
subjects in the Low Countries, experience was beginning 
to teach Philip that it might be expedient to try milder 
ways with them. The Duke of Alva with his blood 
and iron had succeeded only in enlisting the whole of 
the seventeen provinces in a common rebellion, and if 
the war continued, the not unlikely end of it would be 
that Spain would finally lose them all. Holland and 
Zealand might become English, Belgium be absorbed 
into France, and the rest drift away into Germany. 
Bitter Catholic as he was, Philip had some qualities of 
a statesman. He had determined on an effort to make 
up the quarrel. The provinces were to be left with 
their constitutional rights, securities being given for the 
safety of religion. The Spanish army was to be with- 
drawn, and by abandoning attempts at coercion he 
hoped that it might not be too late to recover the 
hearts of the people. 



ir 4 ANTONIO PEREZ: 

To carry out this purpose he had pitched upon his 
brother Don John. The Emperor's memory was still 
honoured in the Low Countries. Charles had always 
been more a Fleming than a Spaniard. Don John, 
with his high rank and chivalrous reputation, was 
likely to be welcome there, or at least more welcome 
than any other person who could be selected ; and an 
opportunity was thrown in his way, if he could use it, 
of winning laurels for himself more enduring than 
those which grow on battle-fields. 

The opportunity, however, was one which a wise 
man only could appreciate. Young soldiers, especially 
soldiers who have been distinguished in arms, are 
seldom in love with constitutions : and to be governor 
at Brussels, with a council of successful rebels to tie 
his hands, was a situation which would have had no 
attraction for the victor of Lepanto, had there not 
been attached to it a more interesting possibility, the 
emprescc de Inglaterra, the invasion and conquest of 
England. Philip himself had for a few years been 
called King of England. His name remains in our 
Statute Book. It was asserted by the Jesuits, it was 
believed by nine-tenths of the orthodox world, that the 
English Catholics, who were two-thirds of the nation, 
were waiting only for the help of a few thousand 
Spaniards to hurl from the throne the excommunicated 
usurper. The Queen of Scots, the Lady of Romance, 
was lying a prisoner in Sheffield Castle. To carry over 
the army when it left the Netherlands, to land in 
Yorkshire, to deliver the enchanted princess, and reign 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 115 

at her side with the Pope's blessing over an England 
restored to the faith — this was a glorious enterprise, 
fit to fire the blood of a Christian knight who was also 
the countryman of Don Quixote. 

Don John was still in Italy when the offer of the 
appointment was made. If it was accepted, the King's 
order to him was to proceed with his secretary directly 
to Brussels without returning to Spain. Not the 
pacification of Flanders, but the em/presa de Inglaterra 
was the thought which rushed into the minds of Don 
John and Escovedo. Instead of setting out as they 
were enjoined, they went to Home to consult Pope 
Pius's successor, to ask for his sanction, to ask for men, 
to ask for the title which had been borne by his 
brother, and all this without so much as going through 
the form of consulting his brother on the subject. 

The Pope was of course delighted. If the attempt 
was made, God would not allow it to fail. The Jesuits 
had all along insisted that Philip's dilatoriness had 
alone allowed heresy to take root in England. Philip 
himself, who knew something of the country, was under 
no such illusion. Five years before he had consented 
unwillingly to the Ridolfi conspiracy. Elizabeth was 
then to have been assassinated ; Spanish troops were 
to have landed, and the Queen of Scots was to have 
had the crown. The end of this fine project had been 
the execution of the Duke of Norfolk, the near escape 
from execution of Mary Stuart, a plague of pirates and 
privateers on the shores of Spanish America, and 
increased severities against the English Catholics. Of 



n6 ANTONIO PEREZ: 

the Queen of Scots Philip had the very worst opinion. 
To strike a blow at that moment at Elizabeth could 
not fail to re-exasperate the Low Countries. English 
soldiers would land in Holland, English corsairs would 
swarm in the Atlantic and seize his treasure-ships. 

None of these considerations occurred to Don John 
or his fiery adviser. Escovedo was even hotter that his 
master, and audacious even to insolence. From Rome, 
in spite of his orders, he went to Madrid; and Don 
John soon after followed him thither, leaving their 
purposes to reach Philip indirectly from another 
quarter. This was in the summer of 1576, and we now 
approach the critical part of the story. Shortly after 
Escovedo arrived at the court, the Nuncio sent one 
morning for Antonio Perez and inquired who a certain 
Escoda was. He had been all night, he said, decipher- 
ing a despatch from his Holiness. It referred to the 
' enterprise of England ' which was to be undertaken, 
if the King would allow it, by Don John. Escoda 
would inform him of the particulars. 

' Escoda ' could be no one but Escovedo. Perez 
carried his information to the King, who was again 
naturally extremely dissatisfied ; the more so perhaps 
that Don John's popularity, and the general favour with 
which Spanish sentiment was likely to take up the 
adventure, obliged him to keep his displeasure to him- 
self. Escovedo evidently thought himself secure. He 
addressed Philip in so rude a letter that Philip com- 
plained of it to Perez. ' If he had spoken to me as he 
has written/ the King said, ' I believe I could not have 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 117 

contained myself/ Words still more rash had fallen 
from Escovedo's lips. ' Don John, when master of Eng- 
land, was afterwards to take charge of Spain/ 

Philip, like most small-minded men, shrank from 
meeting difficulties openly. He took no notice of 
Escovedo's impertinence, and he was afraid or unwilling 
to quarrel with his brother. He allowed the Nuncio to 
give him the Pope's message, and put him off with a 
vague answer. Don John ventured on ground still 
more delicate by asking for the 'chair and canopy/ the 
insignia of a legitimate prince of the blood royal. Even 
this Philip did not refuse. He required only that Don 
John should repair first to his government, compose the 
provinces, and withdraw the army. When this was 
done it would be time to think of ' English enterprises ' 
and chairs and canopies. 

Don John went, and it seemed as if all was smooth 
again. Escovedo was left at Madrid professedly to 
complete some defective arrangements for his master. 
Perhaps Philip was uncertain whether he would trust so 
doubtful an adviser at his brother's side any more. 

I am not writing the history of the wars in the 
Netherlands ; it is enough to say that any hopes which 
had been built on the popularity of Don John were 
disappointed. The Estates refused to admit him as 
governor while the Spanish troops were in the fort- 
resses ; the troops were sullen, and would not move till 
they were paid their wages. Don John wished to 
remove them by sea, meaning, when they were in the 
Channel, to fly at England permitted or unpermitted ; 



u8 ANTONIO PEREZ: 

but Elizabeth and the Prince of Orange had their eyes 
open ; the Estates insisted that the army should retire 
by land, and declined to advance a dollar till they were 
on the march. Don John, being without a friend 
whom he could trust, begged that Escovedo might rejoin 
him ; and Escovedo, not without emphatic warnings 
and reiterated instructions, was allowed to go. The 
demands of the Estates were to be complied with to 
the letter. The army, at whatever sacrifice of bolder 
purposes, was to retire as the Estates desired. Philip 
required peace, and was prepared for the price that was 
to be paid for it. The humiliation was too deep for 
Don John. For the knight-errant of the Church to 
retreat before a burgher council was ignominy. Some- 
thing, he knew not what, must be done to repair it, 
and his thoughts went everywhere except where they 
ought to have been. Escovedo had no sooner arrived 
than a secret correspondence began again with the 
Pope. The religious war was raging in France. Don 
John might join the Duke of Guise and the Catholic 
League, and they might manage England between 
them. Then again he thought how he might satisfy 
his ambition at home. On February 3, 1577, Escovedo 
wrote to Perez to revive the request for the chair and 
canopy. It would give Don John a seat in the Council 
of State. He and Perez and their friends the Arch- 
bishop of Toledo and the Marques de los Velez could 
rule the country as they pleased, and relieve his brother 
of the cares of government. On reflection he perhaps 
remembered that Philip might not be so anxious to be 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 119 

relieved \ for some days after the purpose was changed ; 
Don John was to take his army into France as an 
adventurer, and help the Duke of Guise to destroy the 
Huguenots. Victorious there, he could hold the Estates 
in check, the shame of the retreat would be covered, 
and the ' great design ' on England could go forward. 
Royal princes are excused their follies at the expense of 
their servants. These feverish dreams were set down 
at the Escurial to Escovedo's account, and probably 
with excellent reason. 

Meanwhile, Philip's orders were being obeyed. He 
had agreed to all which the Estates demanded. On 
February 1 2 the arrangement known as the ■ Perpetual 
Edict ' was provisionally accepted, and was forwarded 
to Madrid for ratification. Don John was distracted. 
He believed that he might write to Perez confidentially ; 
for Perez, by Philip's order, had encouraged him to sup- 
pose so ; and much eloquence has been expended on 
the assumed treachery. But kings may be judged too 
harshly in such matters, when they have reason to 
fear that persons whom they have trusted are playing 
tricks with them. If Don John was acting loyally, he 
had nothing to fear. After the edict was sent off, Don 
John wrote again to Perez that he must resign. Sooner 
than remain to govern Flanders on such conditions, he 
would turn hermit. If the King insisted on keeping 
him there he would become desperate, fling up the 
reins and go home, though he lost his life for it. He 
implored that he might not be driven to choose between 
disobedience and infamy. 



F20 ANTONIO PEREZ: 

Perez showed Philip all these letters; and they 
were considered in the cabinet. The blame was laid on 
Escovedo, who was held to have betrayed his trust. 
Don John was informed kindly, but peremptorily, that 
his return at such a time would be prejudicial to the 
public service. No one could be so fit as the King's 
brother to recover the loyalty of the Estates. The 
King said that he understood his feelings, and could 
sympathise with him ; but he must try to be patient ; 
least of all must he rush off into France, where the 
Government had not asked for his assistance. The 
English project and his other wishes should be con- 
sidered when the time for them was come ; but his 
present duty was to reconcile Flanders, and there he 
must remain. Escovedo had spoken of returning him- 
self to speak to the King. Perez told him that if he 
came back without permission, it would be taken as a 
serious offence, and was not to be thought of. 

Don John acquiesced, or seemed to acquiesce. The 
Perpetual Edict was ratified. The troops began the 
evacuation, and on May 2 Don John was received at 
Brussels, and installed as governor. Had he been 
sincere, the storm would have blown over ; but the 
next news which arrived about him at Madrid was that 
he had actually made a private treaty with the Court 
of Rome. The Pope had promised him 6000 men 
and 150,000 ducats for the English expedition, while 
before the Brussels settlement had lasted a fortnight 
he was again in correspondence with the Duke of Guise, 
and was threatening open hostilities against Holland 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 121 

and Zealand, which were making difficulties about 
liberty of worship. The difficulty need not have been 
insuperable ; and the Estates refused to sanction imme- 
diate violence. Don John snatched at the excuse to 
break with them on his own authority ; with such 
regiments as had not yet gone, he seized Namur ; and 
Escovedo, in spite of his positive orders, rushed home 
after all, to press Philip to allow the army to return. 
The war should then be carried on in earnest. The 
Spanish forces could live in the rebel provinces as in 
an enemy's country, and lay them waste with fire and 
sword. 

Information more unwelcome never reached Philip. 
He longed for peace ; he had been acting in good faith ; 
he refused to counter-order the troops ; he blamed the 
seizure of Namur, and abhorred the very mention of 
fire and sword. Still at the eleventh hour he clung to 
the hope of reconciliation. The Estates declared Don 
John a public enemy, and invited the Archduke Matthias 
to take his place. Even so, Philip persevered. He sent 
a commission to offer a complete amnesty, with the 
instant and perpetual removal of the army. The 
Estates might choose their own governor, either the 
Archduke Matthias, or the Archduke Ferdinand, or 
the Prince of Parma. But it was too late ; the day 
for peace was gone. Confidence was irrecoverably 
lost, and the quarrel had to be fought out to the end. 
The army went back — there was no help for it — with 
the Prince of Parma at its head ; while it was said 
and believed that Don John was treating with the 



122 ANTONIO PEREZ: 

Duke of Guise for an open alliance, without regard 
to their respective sovereigns — a very strange and 
questionable performance. Both Guise and Philip 
were no doubt defending the Catholic religion. But 
respect for forms and secular interests were not to 
pass for nothing. Spain and France were the rivals 
for Continental supremacy. They had been at war off 
and on for three-quarters of a century, and, if the 
religious question was settled, might at any time be 
at war again. Philip had not forgotten that it was 
a Duke of Guise who had defended Metz against his 
father ; and for his brother to take on himself to settle 
points of international policy with the subject of another 
sovereign, was something not very far removed from 
treason. 

But we must now return to the scapegoat who was 
to bear the blame for all these things, the unlucky 
Escovedo. Flying home, as we saw him, in the teeth 
of a positive command, he landed at Santander on 
July 2 1 . The worst had not yet happened ; for it was 
not till the January following that the commission went 
with the last overtures for peace, nor was the treating 
with Guise as yet more than an unpleasant rumour. 
But Philip was legitimately incensed with Escovedo, 
and, if we can believe M. Mignet, had prepared a 
peculiar reception for him ; nay, was expecting that 
Escovedo was coming with murderous intentions against 
himself. Perez having informed the King in a note of 
Escovedo's approach, Philip, according to his habit, and 
in his well-known abominable hand, scrawled on the 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 123 

margin, ' Menester sera prevenir nos bien cle todo y dar 
nos mueha priesa & despacharle antes que nos mate.' 
The verb ' despachar,' like its English correspondent 
'despatch/ has two meanings, and 'matar' has two 
meanings. M. Mignet supposes the words to mean, 
1 We must be quick and assassinate him before he kills 
us.' He makes Philip suspect Escovedo of intended 
treason, and resolve to be beforehand with him. But 
no one would have thought of so interpreting the 
passage if Escovedo had not in fact been assassinated 
at a later period. The natural translation would be, 
'We must despatch him quickly (i. e. send him about 
his business) before he worries us to death ; ' and as 
Escovedo remained, for some months after his arrival, 
not only unmolested, but transacting business with the 
King, I cannot infer, with M. Mignet, that Philip had 
already formed so sanguinary a purpose against him. 
Unquestionably, however, no good will was felt towards 
a man who had responded so ill to the confidence which 
had been placed in him. If Philip could have conve- 
niently punished him without irritating his brother, he 
would gladly have read him a sharp lesson, and the 
irritation was likely to be increased as the consequences 
of his misdoings developed themselves. The especial 
uneasiness was on the side of France. In the autumn 
(1577), three months after Escovedo's arrival, Philip 
sent a new ambassador there, Juan de Vargas Mexia, to 
inquire particularly into what was passing between his 
brother and the Duke of Guise. Mexia ascertained 
that the correspondence was real and that secret agents 



124 ANTONIO PEREZ: 

were going to and fro between them, though to what 
purpose he could not tell. The suspicious feature was 
the complete silence on the subject both of Don John 
and his secretary. Escovedo's manners were abrupt 
and arbitrary. In January Philip received a letter 
from him, which he described happily as descosido, loose, 
unstitched, visionary. He handed it to Perez, that he 
might see how ' sanguinary' it was. 

Don John, at the reopening of the war, had begun 
with a success. He had defeated the Prince of Orange 
at Gemblours. He wrote passionately for reinforce- 
ments. The victory had to be followed up, and. all 
would be won. He demanded money — money and 
Escovedo. Philip, unhappily, had won victories before 
in the Low Countries, and knew better what to expect 
from them. His own more temperate policy had been 
thwarted and ruined, and it was but too natural that 
he should hold his brother's wild adviser as responsible. 
If he sent him back, it would be only to throw fuel on 
the fire. Don John, and the Pope, and the Guises would 
set all Europe in confusion. Escovedo was no fool. He 
could not be kept waiting at Madrid with dilatory 
excuses. To imprison him, or bring him to trial, might 
drive Don John at once into some dangerous course. It 
would lead to investigations and the publication of State 
secrets which ought not to be revealed. 

There was a theory much in favour at the Spanish 
court, that criminals who had forfeited their lives, or 
persons whose lives were for any reason inconsistent 
with public safety, might, when the facts were certain, 



A AT UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 125 

and when an open prosecution would be inconvenient, 
be removed privately by orders of the Council of State. 
So Don Carlos bad been disposed of; so the Flemish 
envoy at Simancas. Spain was not the only country 
where in extreme cases such proceedings were held 
permissible. Elizabeth would have been grateful to 
Sir Amyas Paulet if he would have relieved her of the 
Queen of Scots. In Italy, in France, in Scotland, a 
stab with a dagger was an expedient adopted in emer- 
gencies, with no great care to ascertain that it was 
deserved. Spain and England were rather in advance 
of other nations than behind them ; and in Spain, 
heartily loyal as it was, the public had begun to doubt 
whether these secret executions ought to be continued. 
A zealous court preacher had maintained, in a 
sermon at which Philip was present, that kings had 
absolute power over the lives and fortunes of their 
subjects. The Inquisition, of all courts in the world, 
took up the question. The preacher was obliged to 
retract his proposition in the same pulpit, and to confess 
that kings had no more power over their subjects than 
divine and human law allowed them. The old view, 
however, held its ground in spite of the Holy Office, 
and was professed in its extreme form by no less a 
person than the King's spiritual adviser, the same Diego 
de Chaves who was mentioned at the opening of our 
story. Don Diego's opinion was this : ' So far as I 
understand the law,' he said, ' a secular prince who for 
sufficient cause can take his subjects' lives from them 
by course of law can also do it without course of law when 



126 ANTONIO PEREZ: 

the evidence of the guilt is clear. Form and order are 
not essentials in such sense that they cannot be dis- 
pensed with; and if the prince has sufficient reasons 
for proceeding irregularly, the vassal who by his com- 
mand puts to death another vassal is doing no more 
than his duty. He is bound to assume the cause to be 
adequate. The presumption in all cases is that the 
prince has reason for what he does/ 

This doctrine was still held by Philip; and the 
difficulty with Escovedo was precisely of the kind where 
the application of it was convenient. Escovedo's guilt 
mio-ht be assumed. He was a confidential minister who 

o 

had disobeyed his orders, and had caused a great public 
calamity, involving the renewal of a civil war. If allowed 
to live, he would still be dangerous. To bring him to 
an account openly would be dangerous also. Philip 
directed Antonio Perez to consult the Marques de los 
Velez. The opinion of the marquis was decided, that 
Escovedo should be killed ; yet that the King must not 
appear to have directed his execution, lest Don John 
should be exasperated. Some scheme should be con- 
trived by which it could appear that he had been sacri- 
ficed to private revenge. A Government must have 
been singularly helpless which could have recourse to 
such expedients. But so it was. For the act itself De 
los Velez had so little hesitation that, ' with the Sacra- 
ment in his mouth/ he was ready to assert the necessity 
of it. The best method, he thought, would be to give 
Escovedo ' something to eat ' from which he should not 
recover. 






AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 127 

There was nothing in such a proposal to disturb 
Philip's ignoble conscientiousness. He sincerely believed 
that by consenting he was discharging a public duty, 
and with no more personal resentment than if he had 
been signing a warrant for an ordinary execution. It 
has never been suggested that Philip had any private 
malice against Escovedo, or had any motive beyond 
what was afterwards alleged. Why Antonio Perez 
should have encouraged him, why he should himself 
have so readily undertaken a treacherous office, is 
another question on which speculation has been busy. 
He had been Escovedo's personal friend. They had 
grown up as boys together in the family of E,uy Gomez. 
They had been transferred together to the King's 
service. They had never differed politically until 
Escovedo had become Don John's secretary, and they 
had corresponded afterwards on terms of the closest 
intimacy. It is true that Perez had been the strongest 
advocate for a policy of peace, and Escovedo for war ; 
but an antagonism of opinion scarcely explains the 
readiness with which one Secretary of State undertook 
to murder another. And it has been assumed as a 
matter of ■ course that Perez must have had some 
private motives of his own. 

Before entering into these dark regions I will describe 
briefly what actually happened. The 'something to 
eat' was administered as De los Velez recommended. 
Perez took into his confidence his own master of the 
household, Diego Martinez : he told him that the King 
and council considered Escovedo's life to be dangerous 



128 ANTONIO PEREZ: 

to the peace of Europe, and that Escovedo must be 
secretly made away with. To satisfy Martinez's scruples 
he showed him a letter in the King's hand. Enriquez, 
a page, was also admitted into the mystery. An apo- 
thecary was found far away in Aragon who could mix 
a potion, and Escovedo was invited to dinner. Two or 
three experiments were tried with imperfect success. 
The unlucky wretch became very ill after swallowing a 
dish of cream with some white powder in it; but he 
had not taken enough. He suspected foul play, and 
afterwards dined alone in his apartments in the palace. 
A page in the palace kitchen was bribed to put a larger 
dose into a plate which was sent up to him. Escovedo 
discovered the poison, and an innocent slave-girl who 
had dressed the dish was strangled in the Plaza at 
Madrid. 

The fate of this poor creature, so piteous because so 
utterly undeserved, passed as a mere incident; Perez 
scarcely gave a second thought to it, and the King's 
conscience could not descend to a kitchen wench. But 
poison, it was clear, could not be depended on ; and 
steel was a surer method. Escovedo's habits were 
watched. He was out much after dark, and returned 
late to his apartments. Bravoes were brought up by 
the exertions of Diego Martinez from remote parts of 
the Peninsula. Easter had come, and Perez, to be out 
of the way, went for the Holy Week to Alcala de 
Henares. On the night of Easter Monday, March 31, 
1578, Don John's secretary was run through the body 
in a public street, and was killed on the spot. 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 129 

Madrid was an orderly city, and open assassinations 
were unusual. A person, himself of so much conse- 
quence, and the notorious favourite of a prince who was 
the idol of the people, could not be found lying dead 
without a considerable stir being caused by it. The 
police were out like hornets. The gates were guarded, 
and no one was allowed to pass. The hotels and lodging- 
houses were called on for a list of their guests. The 
assassins were out of reach, for they were secreted in 
Perez's own house, and no clue could be found; yet 
suspicion at once and instinctively pointed to Perez as the 
instigator, and his absence at Alcala was not enough to 
clear him. His wife, Juana Coello, called to condole 
with Escovedo's widow. The widow had not forgotten 
the dinners and the illness which followed, and the 
detected attempts at poison. She said significantly she 
feared the blow had been aimed by a friend's hand. 
Perez hurried back to the capital, pretending to be 
horrified. He saw Escovedo's son. He told the alcalde 
of the court that Escovedo had many enemies; there 
were rumours of a love affair in Flanders ; Escovedo, 
he knew, had lately received a message, bidding him 
beware of some jealous Fleming. Perhaps he over- 
acted his part. The alcalde and the alcalde's son, Garcia 
de Arce, cross-questioned him unpleasantly. The King 
was out at the Escurial, where, of course, reports reached 
him from the magistrates ; but he was anxious for par- 
ticulars. On April 3, three days after the murder, Perez 
wrote to him, and a copy of the letter survives, with 
Philip's marginal remarks upon it. Perez told him 



i 3 o ANTONIO PEREZ: 

what had passed with the alcalde, and mentioned what 
he had said about the love affair. Philip noted, ' This 
was very right/ Garcia de Arce had asked Perez 
whether there had been a quarrel between him and 
Escovedo, implying that he had heard something to that 
effect from Escovedo's wife. Philip observed, ' There 
will be danger from that woman/ ' The alcalde/ Perez 
said, ' had discovered that strange things had been going 
on during the winter in Escovedo's house; mysterious 
visitors, night expeditions none knew where, and secret 
boxes of papers, and keys of other people's houses/ * 
Philip, who evidently looked on himself as a careful, 
well-intentioned prince, who had disposed of a public 
enemy in a skilful manner, thought more of Escovedo's 
plots than of awkward consequences from his murder. 
He remarked that these keys and visits had a bad com- 
plexion ; the alcalde must look more closely into that 
matter, and search it to the bottom. Perez was uncom- 
fortable about his bravoes, whom he knew not how to 
dispose of. He had thought of sending them away 
with despatches as Government couriers ; but it seemed 
too dangerous. He recommended Philip to put the 
inquiry into the alcalde's hands exclusively, and to forbid 
any other person to meddle with it. Philip prudently 
observed that to interfere with the investigation would 
provoke suspicion. He would communicate with the 
alcalde, and would do what he could. The bravoes must 
be kept for the present where they were, and Perez 
meanwhile might come out to the Escurial to see him. 
Finally, to quiet Perez's evident alarm, he said: 'If 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. iji 

Escovedo's widow desires to speak with me, I cannot 
refuse to see her ; but do not fear that you will be 
unsupported. I am with you, and will not fail you in 
anything that may be expedient or necessary. Assure 
yourself of this. You know it well/ 

There is no doubt at all that in the last extremity, 
and if Perez's life was in danger, Philip intended 
honestly to tell the truth. 

Strong, however, as suspicion was, suspicion was not 
proof; and proof against Perez there was none. He 
had been many miles from Madrid when the murder 
was committed. His servants, Diego Martinez and 
Enriquez, knew that they had been acting by the King's 
authority. They had everything to gain by keeping 
counsel, and might be in serious danger if they betrayed 
their secret. The bravoes slipped away after a week or 
two, when the vigilance had relaxed. Each of them 
had a bag of doubloons with a commission as alferez 
(ensign in the army, unattached). They dispersed to 
Italy, to Central Europe, to all the winds. Every trace 
was thus swept out which could connect Perez with the 
murder. The excitement died gradually away, and the 
affair seemed to be forgotten. 

But poisoned wounds will not heal, though they be 
skinned over. The sore was to break out again, and 
the story to assume a form which has given it a place 
among the causes cSlebres of the world. 

Brilliant writers of history are subject to one general 
temptation — they desire to give their narrative dramatic 
completeness. The drama, if it is to have flavour, must 



132 ANTONIO PEREZ: 

revolve upon personal motives, and history must follow 
on the same lines. Sovereigns and statesmen who have 
been charged with the fortunes of nations, are assumed, 
where their actions require explanation, to have been 
influenced by no other passions than those which 
govern private individuals in their own more limited 
spheres. When a woman's name appears as connected 
with such high persons, the connection is always assumed 
to have been of one peculiar kind. To ask for evidence 
or look for other explanations is taken as a sign of 
simplicity or of ignorance of human nature. 

The legend now stereotyped in European tradition 
is that the wife of Euy Gomez, the Princess of Eboli, 
was the mistress of Philip the Second, and that the 
Princess of Eboli preferred Antonio Perez to the King. 
Escovedo, it is said, discovered the intrigue and threat- 
ened to reveal it. Perez, in consequence, calumniated 
Escovedo to Philip. Philip allowed him to be murdered, 
but discovered afterwards that he had been the dupe of 
a treacherous minister and a bad woman, and regarded 
Perez thenceforward with implacable hatred. 

Now, before going further, I have to observe that 
the eleven years during which Philip is assumed to 
have been occupied with these emotions and the effort 
to give effect to them, were the busiest in the whole of 
his long, laborious reign. They were the years in which 
he annexed Portugal. They were the years of Parma's 
administration of the Netherlands. They were the 
years of preparation for the Armada. There was the 
civil war in France to be watched and guided. There 



AN UNSOLVED, HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 133 

were Naples and Sicily to be ruled, and the Turks to 
be held in check in the Mediterranean. There were 
the ambassadors' despatches from foreign courts. There 
was a close, constant, and elaborate correspondence to 
be maintained with the Pope. There were the reports 
of the Inquisition to be received and studied. There 
were English, Scotch, and Irish Catholic conspiracies 
to be kept in hand. There was the great new empire 
across the Atlantic, and Drake and Hawkins, and the 
English corsairs. There were the various Councils of 
State for the internal administration at home, and in 
every one of these departments Philip not only inter- 
fered but exercised the most unrelaxiDg supervision. 
Whether he did his work well or ill is not to the 
purpose ; mind and body were incessantly engaged upon 
it. Minutes of council, tens of thousands of ciphered 
despatches with rough drafts of as many ciphered 
answers to them, survive to witness to the industry of 
a sovereign who permitted nothing to be done without 
his knowledge in all his enormous dominions. There 
is scarcely one of these documents which is not annotated 
in his hand, and often elaborately ; and students who, 
like myself, have toiled through these mountains of 
papers, have cursed the writing, the worst perhaps that 
ever was seen, but have had to confess, when the mean- 
ing was arrived at, that the meaning was a real and 
often a wise one. The poor King did patiently 
endeavour to understand the subjects before him, and 
to resolve upon them with the best efforts of his limited 
ability; while if the working hours of every day had 



i 3 4 ANTONIO PEREZ: 

been doubled, and thus doubled had been devoted all 
to duty, they would still seem insufficient for the 
business which he demonstrably got through. 

That a mind so occupied should have had leisure 
to trouble itself with 'jealousies ' and ' mistresses,' or 
indeed to give more than a passing thought to the 
Escovedo affair at all after the public dangers from him 
had ceased, is to me not easily conceivable, for the 
simple reason that there was no time for it. The King 
was occupied all but exclusively with other matters. 
The murder was an angry spot which would not heal; 
he had fallen into a scrape, and his behaviour was 
singular ; but it can be more easily explained by clumsy 
efforts to extricate himself than by a romance of which 
nine-tenths is conjecture, and the tenth remaining 
inconsistent with admitted facts. 

It is, however, true that the Princess of Eboli was 
soon supposed to have been connected in some way 
with Escovedo's assassination. The widow of Escovedo 
knew that high words had passed between her husband 
and Antonio Perez in which the name of the Princess 
had been mentioned. Perez had been more successful 
in life than his companion officials, and had borne him- 
self in his prosperity with less moderation than prudence 
would have recommended. One of these, a priest named 
Matteo Vasquez, and himself one of Philip's secretaries, 
disliked Perez, and was also employed in some law-suit 
against the Princess. He sought out Escovedo's family 
and learnt what they had to tell. He was busy 'all the 
summer and the winter following pushing his inquiries, 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 135 

and thought at last that he had made a notable dis- 
covery. In December, nine months after the murder, 
he, wrote and circulated an ajipnjmaus pasquil, full of 
scandalous reflections on Perez and the lady, while 
simultaneously Escovedo's widow and her son directly 
charged Perez with the crime, adding that it had been 
committed to gratify the Princess of Eboli. Perez 
carried the pasquil to Philip — a daring act on his part, 
if he knew himself to be the King's successful rival. 
Philip again assured him, both by word and writing, 
that he need not be uneasy, that no harm should befall 
him; but Perez knew his master well; he knew his 
unwillingness that his own share in the matter should 
be made public, and he observed that Philip seemed 
not displeased that Vasquez and the Escovedos should 
be running on a false scent. 

It is time, therefore, to say a few words about this 
famous lady ; to tell who she was, and how she came to 
be concerned in a matter which appeared to be wholly 
political. 

Dona Ana, widow of Ruy Gomez, Prince of Eboli, 
was the only child of Don Diego Hurtado, chief of the 
great house of Mendoza, There were many Mendozas 
in the Spanish peerage. Don Diego's was the eldest 
branch. On her father's death a part, but not all, of 
the inheritance descended to the daughter. She wa3 
Princess of Eboli as her husband's widow. Her eldest 
son, a youth of twenty or thereabouts, was Duke of 
Pastrana and Prince of Melito. She had five younger 
children. One of them, a daughter, was married to 



136 



ANTONIO PEREZ: 



Alonzo the Good, Duke of Medina Sidonia, known to 
history as the admiral of the Armada. Family disputes 
seem to have arisen about Don Diego's succession. 
Some suit was pending between her and other members 
of the family. The Princess was detaining money, 
jewels, and other possessions, to which her relatives laid 
claim; and the quarrel was further complicated by the 
political leanings of the young Prince of Melito, who 
had deserted the old party of his father, Ruy Gomez, 
and had gone over to the Duke of Alva. 

The Princess herself was now thirty-eight years old. 
She had lost one eye, and was otherwise not beautiful ; 
but she was energetic, imperious, with considerable 
talents, and able, if she pleased, to be fascinating. That 
she had been Philip's mistress was an Italian scandal ; 
nothing had then been heard of it in Spain ; but Perez 
gave mysterious hints that the King would have been 
more intimate with her if she had encouraged him. 
Any way, she had lost Philip's favour. Visitors at the 
Eboli palace were frowned upon at the Escurial; the 
world said that the King was irritated at the rejection 
of his advances, 1 and that ' wishes unsatisfied were more 
exasperating than a thousand offences.' 

This was perhaps but court gossip ; but, whether 
fact or legend, it is certain on the other hand that the 
relations between the Princess and Antonio Perez were 
intimate and even affectionate. He had been her 



1 ' Por vivir el Key offendido 
de la antigua y continua duracion 
de la entereza de la Princesa de 



Eboly haciendole raenosprecio. 
Pelacion de Antonio Perez. 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 



'37 



husband's adopted son. The Princess professed to 
believe that Ruy Gomez was his real father, and to her 
Perez's devotion was unconcealed and unbounded. He 
describes in an enigmatic letter the position in which 
he stood towards her. M. Mignet says that there can 
be no doubt of his meaning, and rushes to a preconceived 
conclusion. The letter is intentionally obscure ; the 
press is uncorrected ; and the text in parts is hopeless. 
But he alludes to the suggestion that he was the 
Princess's lover only to fling it from him with disgust. 
His love was for his own wife, whose attachment to 
him is the finest feature in the whole of this distracted 
story. The Princess of Eboli he worshipped as a being 
beyond his sphere. He spoke of her as ' a jewel 
enamelled in the rarest graces of nature and fortune/ 
To her husband he owed all that he had become, and 
he repaid his debt by helping his widow in her difficul- 
ties. He made her large advances of money, he collected 
her rents from Italy ; she in turn made him handsome 
presents ; but that either with the King or with Perez 
the Princess had any personal intrigue is a romantic 
imagination like the legend of Don Carlos and his 
step-mother. 1 



1 There is no evidence for it 
except what is supposed to lie in 
the letter of Antonio Perez ' a, un 
Gran Personage,' which formed 
part of his public defence. What 
that letter means it is impossible 
to say, or even what it was intended 
to suggest. Perez says that the 
King disapproved of the intimacy 



between himself and the Princess, 
and that there was a mystery con- 
nected with this. But a mystery 
was not necessarily a love affair, 
nor does it follow that there was a 
mystery because such a person as 
Perez wished to make himself inter- 
esting by hinting at one. 



1 38 ANTONIO PEREZ: 

It was but natural, under the circumstances, that 
the Mendoza family should bear no love to Perez, 
because in the feuds which had arisen he was taking 
the Princess's side. The Prince of Melito had threatened 
to run him through the body. The Marques de Fabara 
and the Conde de Cifuentes called one clay on the 
Princess, and were kept waiting because she was 
closeted with the Secretary. Both of them thought 
that such a fellow was not fit to live. Escovedo, it 
came out, had taken the opposite side to Perez. He, 
too, had been brought up by Ruy Gomez, and claimed 
a right to interfere in defence of his old master's honour. 
He had disapproved of the acquaintance; he had said 
that it must and should be put an end to ; and he had 
spoken to the Princess with so rude a tongue, that she 
called him a foul-mouthed villain. 

A quarrel of this kind explains the ease with which 
Perez consented to kill Escovedo. We know no actual 
good of Perez, and there would have been nothing 
surprising if, out of revenge, he really had misled the 
King into thinking Escovedo more guilty than he was. 
But the attempt to prove it broke down; Philip had 
been influenced by Don John's and Escovedo's own 
despatches, which had been deciphered by another 
hand ; and never to the last felt certain that his 
Secretary had in this matter deceived him. Some 
personal resentment there was, and the Princess was in 
some way the occasion of it, but in fact Philip's conduct 
requires no secret passion to make it intelligible. He 
did not doubt, at least at first, that he had done right, 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 139 

but he was unwilling to admit the truth. He had to 
maintain his respectability, and, therefore, would not 
try to prevent the Escovedos and their friends from 
prosecuting their complaints, while he was not ill- 
pleased that their suspicions should run wide of himself, 
and fasten in a quarter where he knew that there was 
nothing to be discovered. It was just the course which 
small, commonplace cunning would naturally pursue. 
The Marques de los Velez could not understand it ; he 
did not like the look of things, and applied for the 
governorship of Peru : Perez offered to retire from the 
public service and satisfy his enemies thus : but the 
King refused to accept Perez's resignation ; he said that 
he could not spare him ; he reiterated, on the word of 
a gentleman, ' that he would never forsake him, and 
that Perez knew his word could be depended on.' 

More and more loudly Matteo Vasquez and the 
Escovedos demanded a trial. The King could not 
directly refuse. Perez himself advised acquiescence; 
the actual assassins, he said, were beyond reach of 
discovery ; there was no evidence ; he was ready to face 
the prosecution ; the name of the Princess need not be 
mentioned. Philip, however, had a conscience above 
perjury ; he was not ashamed to admit what he had 
done, if it was known only to discreet persons who 
could be safely trusted. The case was to be heard 
before the High Court of Castile. The King sent for 
Don Antonio de Pazos, who was then President, told 
him everything, and asked his advice. The President 
thought that the prosecution must be silenced; he 



1 4 o ANTONIO PEREZ: 

informed young Escovedo that if he insisted on justice 
he should have it, but he was accusing persons of high 
rank in the State ; his charge, if he failed to make it 
good, wouldnrecoil on himself; and he assured him on 
the word of -a priest that Perez and the Princess were 
as innocent as himself. With Matteo Vasquez the 
President was more peremptory. Vasquez, he said, 
was no relation of Escovedo's ; his interference, espe- 
cially as he was a priest, was gratuitous and unbecom- 
ing; on the facts he was mistaken altogether. The 
Escovedos yielded and promised to go no further; 
Vasquez was obstinate, and persisted. Public curiosity 
had been excited ; it was felt instinctively that the 
King was in the secret, and there was now a widespread 
desire to know what that secret was. Vasquez hated 
Perez and the Princess also, and made himself the 
representative of the popular anxiety. 

Philip had been contented that opinion should run 
in a false direction; and he had hoped to prevent too 
close an inquiry by his confidence with the President. 
He had failed, and he had seemed to wish in conse- 
quence to silence Vasquez, and, if possible, to reconcile 
him with the Princess whom he had calumniated. But 
now the difficulty was on her side. She, the greatest 
lady in Spain after the Queen, had been insulted and 
slandered ; it was not for her to leave a cloud upon her 
name by stooping to take the hand of her accuser. 
The Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo was sent to reason 
with her, but the Archbishop was too much of her own 
opinion to make an impression on her indignation. 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 141 

She had already a long catalogue of grievances, and 
this last insult was too much. She wrote Philip a 
letter which he showed to Perez, and Perez preserved it. 

Senor, — Your Majesty has commanded the Cardinal of Toledo 
to speak with me in the matter of Antonio Perez. Matteo 
Vasqnez and his friends have said openly that all who enter my 
house lose your favour. They have stated also that Antonio 
Perez killed Escovedo on my account ; that he was under so 
many obligations to my family, that he would do whatever I 
asked him. They have published abroad these speeches ; and I 
require your Majesty, as a king and a gentleman, to take such 
notice of this conduct as the world shall hear of. If your 
Majesty declines, if the honour of my house is to be sacrificed, 
as our property has been sacrificed, if this is to be the reward of 
the long and faithful services of my ancestors, be it so. I have 
discharged my conscience ; self-respect forbids me to say more. 

I write to your Majesty in resentment at the offences which 
I have received, and I write in confidence, supposing myself to 
be addressing a gentleman. 

The President presses me about a letter, which I wrote to 

your Majesty, touching bribes taken by (word omitted). I 

am charged with having said something of the Duke of . 

My character suffers from these tokens of your Majesty's good- 
will. Though justice is on my side, my suit is before a tainted 
tribunal ; I shall lose it and be put out of possession. When I 
ask the President why he acts thus towards me, he says that your 
Majesty will have it so. Melchior de Herrera (?) allows that I 
am right ; but he swears me to this and that, and pretends that 
it is your pleasure. You have sent him a memorial from Don 
Inigo. 1 Why am I to be twice memorialised ? It is important 
to me to withdraw the security under which I and my children 
are bound for Don Inigo. He has broken his obligations, and 
may leave Valladolid. Antonio de Padilla confesses that it is so ; 
but your Majesty forbids him to interfere. If this is true, I may 
as well abandon my suit, and my children too. This is the 
natural conclusion from the position which you assume towards 



Inigo de Mendoza, Marquis of Almenara. 



142 



ANTONIO PEREZ 



me. When I reflect what my husband's merits were, such; 
treatment would make me lose my senses did I not need them 
all to guard myself from this Moorish cur (Matteo Vasquez) 
Whom your Majesty keeps in your service. I demand that 
neither I nor any of mine may be placed in that man's power. 

I have given this letter, though it strays far beyond 
our immediate subject, because it shows how imper- 
fectly the circumstances are known to us which 
surround the story ; and how idle it is for us to indulge 
imagination beyond what is written. Long avenues of 
questions lie open before us, which must remain for 
ever unanswered, yet in the answer to which alone can 
lie a complete explanation of the relations between the 
Princess of Eboli and the King of Spain. 

Submit to be reconciled with the ' Moorish cur' it 
was plain she would not. He had circulated slanders 
against her in the court, and she insisted that he should 
withdraw them. 1 Perez was obstinate too, for his 



1 This article had been written, 
and was partly in type, before I 
had seen the interesting work, 
lately published, on the Princess 
of Eboli, by Don Gaspar Moro. 
Although the documents dis- 
covered by Don Gaspar have 
added largely to our knowledge of 
the secret history of the Princess, 
I have found it unnecessary to 
withdraw or alter any opinion 
which I had formed. I have had 
the pleasure of finding my own 
conjectures for the most part 
confirmed and converted into 
certainties by evidence not open 



to dispute. Don Gaspar has dis- 
proved conclusively the imagined 
liaison between the Princess and 
Philip the Second. He continues 
to believe that improper relations 
existed between her and Antonio 
Perez ; but as he alleges nothing 
fresh in proof of it beyond what 
was already known, I look on this 
as no more than part of the old 
legend which has continued to 
adhere to Don Gaspar with no 
more authority for it than tra- 
dition. The passionate love which 
existed between Perez and his own 
wife is inconsistent with a belief, 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL KIDDLE. 



143 



honour was touched. The Archbishop of Toledo and 
the .King's special preacher, Fray Hernando de Castillo, 



at least on her part, that any such 
relation had been formed. Be this 
as it may, however, Don Gaspar 
has proved that the jealousy of 
which Perez speaks, as having 
governed Philip's conduct, was no 
jealousy of the preference of Perez 
to himself by the Princess, but a 
jealousy of the influence of a 
woman, with whom he was on the 
Worst possible terms, over his own 
secretary. Don Gaspar has found 
and printed more than a hundred 
letters of Matteo Vasquez, whose 
connection with the Escovedo 
prosecution was so close, and had 
hitherto been so unintelligible. 
The Crown was in some way 
interested in the great law-suits 
which the Princess was carrying 
on. In all that related to her 
Matteo Vasquez was as deep in 
Philip's confidence as Antonio 
Perez in the wider world of 
politics. His relations with each 
of them were carefully concealed 
from the other. Perez might 
know that Matteo Vasquez was 
employed by his master against 
the Princess ; but Matteo Vasquez 
never guessed that his master had 
ordered Perez to assassinate Es- 
covedo : and thus Philip himself, 
by his passion for secrecy, and for 
what he regarded as skilful 
management, had entangled his 
two secretaries in a furious an- 
tagonism. Perez had no know- 



ledge how far Philip had engaged 
himself in the Eboli litigation. 
To him Matteo Vasquez appeared 
to have thrown himself gratui- 
tously into the quarrel. The King 
was irritated at Perez for uncon- 
sciously thwarting him by taking 
up the Princess's cause. Matteo, 
who evidently, from his letters, 
hated the Princess, had almost 
succeeded in dragging into light 
his master's complicity with 
Escovedo's murder, by his inno- 
cent belief that Perez and the 
Princess were the guilty parties, 
and that the cause of the murder 
was resentment at the part which 
Escovedohad taken in attempting 
to separate the Princess from 
Perez. Not a hint, not a sugges- 
tion of any love-scandal appears in 
the whole of the correspondence. 
Some great question was at issue, 
the very nature of which cannot 
now be accurately made out, on 
which the court was divided, and 
which was enveloped in a network 
of intrigue — the King sitting in 
the middle of it, playing the part 
of Providence with the best 
intentions, with extremely limited 
ability, and with the most un- 
fortunate results — for he affected 
especially to imitate Providence 
in the secrecy of its methods ; and 
secrecy is only safe to a judgment 
which cannot err. 



i 4 4 ANTONIO PEREZ: 

stood by them, and the quarrel had gone into a new 
form. Philips position was a ridiculous one. If 
Vasquez persisted in prosecuting Perez before a judge 
who was acquainted with the truth, it was scarcely 
possible that the truth would be unrevealed. Secretary 
Vasquez is a dark figure. The letter of the Princess 
shows that Philip was secretly employing this man in 
various matters in which she supposed herself to be 
wronged, and there were reasons for his conduct 
at which, with our imperfect knowledge, it is idle to 
guess. Consulting no one but his confessor, the King 
gave orders for the arrest both of Perez and of the 
Princess also, and on July 29, 1579, they were ordered 
into separate confinement. The lady's relations, it is 
likely, required no explanations, but for form's sake 
Philip offered them. The same night he wrote to the 
Duke of Infantado and to Medina Sidonia. A dispute 
had arisen, he said, between his two secretaries, Antonio 
Perez and Matteo Vasquez, with which the Princess 
was concerned. She had complained to him un- 
reasonably, and his confessor had vainly endeavoured 
to persuade her to be reconciled to Vasquez. She had 
been committed, therefore, to the fortress of Pinto, and 
he had thought it right to give them immediate 
information. The resentment of the Duke of Infantado 
was not likely to be deep; Medina Sidonia replied 
coolly that so wise a sovereign had doubtless good 
reason for his actions. He was himself laid up with 
gout, and the pain was in his mind as w T ell as in his 
body. He trusted that his Majesty would be gracious 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 145 

to the Princess, and that the grace would be even more 
marked than the punishment. 

The Archbishop of Toledo called the next morning 
on Juana de Coello, Perez's wife. He told her from the 
King that she was not to be alarmed. Her husband's 
life was in no danger, nor his honour either. The 
imprisonment was a mere matter of precaution to 
prevent other mischiefs. 

The Princess now drops out of the scene. Philip 
informed her that if she would undertake to hold no 
more communication with Perez, she would be received 
to favour, and might return to the court. She replied 
that if Perez ever wrote to her or sent her a message, 
the King should know of it. But this was not sufficient. 
After a brief confinement she was allowed to retire 
to her castle at Pastrana, and there without further 
disturbance she remained to the end of her life. 

Meanwhile, if Philip's object had been to stop the 
prosecution for Escovedo's murder, and to divert sus- 
picion from himself, both purposes had been attained. 
Matteo Vasquez must have been satisfied, for his name 
was never mentioned again. Popular opinion had 
accused Perez of having committed the murder at the 
Princess's instigation. Their simultaneous arrest led to 
a general belief that the suspicion was not unfounded. 
If the King had made a second confidant of Vasquez, 
and had concerted the details of the comedy with him, 
the result, at least for a time, did credit to his ingenuity. 
Perez's fault, whatever it had been, was not to appear 
unpardonable. He was left four months in charge of 



i 4 6 ANTONIO PEREZ: 

the alcalde of the court. He was treated with kind- 
ness, and even distinction, and was permitted to have 
his children with him. In the November following he 
became unwell, and was permitted further to return to 
his own house, though still as a prisoner. Next he was 
required to sign a bond of pleytohomenage, by which he 
and Matteo Vasquez engaged as king's vassals not to 
injure each other. The guard was then removed. He 
recovered his freedom and resumed his duties as 
secretary to the Council of State, though no longer as 
confidential secretary to the King. The whole matter 
seemed to have been thus wound up, and public 
interest was soon directed on worthier objects. The 
death of Don Sebastian in Africa had left vacant the 
Portuguese throne. Philip took possession of the suc- 
cession as the nearest heir. The Duke of Alva with 
a few skilful movements disposed of the pretender. 
Philip went to Lisbon to be installed as sovereign, and 
in the glory of this grand achievement Escovedo's 
assassination might have gone the way of other 
scandals. 

But, as Perez said, ' it was a thing which had no 
beginning and could have no end/ A cloud still hung 
over him, and his slightest movements were watched. 
The Princess of Eboli sent him presents from Pastrana. 
It was immediately reported to Philip. He had many 
friends, the Archbishop of Toledo, and 'grandees' of 
hiohest rank. Thev came often to see him, but he was 
forbidden to return their visits. Philip evidently chose 
that a sinister suspicion should still remain attached to 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 147 

him. Antonio de Pazos, the President of Castile, knew 
the whole story, for the King had told him. Juana de 
Coello complained to him of her husband's treatment, 
and insisted that his reputation ought to be cleared. 
The President was of the same opinion, and so informed 
the King. ' If Antonio Perez has committed a crime/ 
he said, ' give him a formal trial and hang him. If he 
is innocent, let him go on his good behaviour, and if he 
offends again, punish him.' 

The King answered : ' If the matter were of a kind 
which would allow a judicial process, it should have 
been ordered from the first day. You must tell the 
woman to be quiet ; no change is possible at present/ 

' Time,' Philip used to say, ' cures all evils/ ' Time 
and I never fail/ And so he went on trusting to time 
when time could not help him. 

Perez had friends, but he had enemies also. Matteo 
Vasquez had withdrawn, but others had taken his place, 
and Philip's ambiguities encouraged them. Among 
these were the powerful Mendozas. Perez had managed 
the Princess's money affairs. He had jewels in his 
charge and other things also which they conceived to 
belong to them. His habits were luxurious, and 
remained so in spite of his semi-disgrace. His palace, 
his plate, his furniture, his equipments, and entertain- 
ments were the most splendid in Madrid. He gambled 
also ; perhaps he won, perhaps he lost ; in either case it 
was a reproach. How, men asked, could Antonio Perez 
support such a vast expenditure ? and the answer sug- 
gested was, of course, corruption or malversation. He 



148 ANTONIO PEREZ: 

had six thousand ducats a year from his offices; but 
the Archbishop of Seville, a friendly witness, said that 
he must be spending fifteen or twenty thousand. The 
King was advised to order an inquiry into the accounts 
of all the public offices, and of Perez's, of course, among 
them. A ' lion's mouth,' like that at Venice, was 
opened for secret information, and was not long in 
want of sustenance. Accusations poured in as venom- 
ous as hatred could distil. Eodrigo Vasquez de Arce, 1 
who afterwards became President of the High Court, 
conducted the investigation of them, and the result 
was not favourable to Perez. Undoubtedly he had 
received sums of money from all parts of the empire 
to expedite business, just as Bacon did in England, and 
as high officials everywhere were then in the habit of 
doing. They looked on such things as recognised per- 
quisites so long as nothing was said about them ; but 
gratuities were formally prohibited, and, when exposed, 
were incapable of defence. 

On the Report being presented, Philip allowed 
Perez to be prosecuted for corrupt practices, and it was 
then that, at a venture, he was accused further of 
having altered ciphered despatches. 

No one knew better than Philip that, under the 
arrangements of his cabinet, the alteration of despatches 
without his own knowledge was impossible. Perez 
wrote to Philip to remonstrate. * He could not answer 
such a charge,' he said, ( without producing his papers,' 



1 It does not appear whether lie was a relation of Matteo Vasquez. 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 149 

and among them the King's own notes upon Escovcdo's 
death. The confessor was sent to see these papers, and, 
having read them, could only recommend his master 
to let the charge fall. As to corrupt practices, he 
advised Perez to make no defence, and assured him 
that he should not be condemned in the value of a pair 
of gloves. The sentence went beyond the pair of 
gloves. Perez was suspended from his office for ten 
years. He was to suffer two years' imprisonment, and 
was to pay besides thirty thousand ducats, half to the 
Crown, and half to the family of the Princess of Eboli, 
as property belonging to them which he had unlawfully 
appropriated. 

This judgment was delivered on January 23, 1585. 
It was not published; nor is it certain how much of 
it was enforced. But there were reasons why, at that 
moment, the sentence of imprisonment was convenient. 
The Escovedo business was bursting up again. Enriquez, 
the page, who had assisted at the murder, had let fall 
incautious speeches. The President, Rodrigo Vasquez, 
took the subject into the scope of his inquiries. He 
sent for Enriquez and examined him. On his evidence 
Diego Martinez was arrested also. If these two could 
be induced to tell the truth, the proofs against Perez 
would be complete. He might produce his papers, but 
in a close court the judges might refuse to receive or 
look at them to save the King's credit; and Perez 
would certainly be executed. The King was just then 
going down to Aragon for the opening of the Cortes. 
In Aragon trials were public, with equal justice between 



ISO ANTONIO PEREZ: 

king and subject. Perez, himself an Aragonese, if left 
free might follow the King thither, and put himself 
under the protection of the laws of the Province. 
There certainly, if not in Madrid, his exculpation would 
be heard. It was therefore determined that he should 
be at once arrested, and a guard was sent to his house 
to take him. 

Perez from first to last had an honest friend at the 
court, Cardinal Quiroga, Archbishop of Toledo. The 
Archbishop saw, or feared, that Perez was about to be 
sacrificed, and his sense of equity, though he was Grand 
Inquisitor, was outraged. He recommended Perez to 
take sanctuary. He would then be a prisoner of the 
Church, and his case would be heard in the Holy 
Office. The Inquisition had already denounced Philip s 
method of removing doubtful subjects. It would stand 
by Perez now and prevent a scandalous crime. 

Perez took the Cardinal's advice and fled to the 
nearest church. But the Crown officials were deter- 
mined to have him, and the sanctuary was not respected. 
The church door was burst in ; he was torn out of his 
hiding-place, and carried off again to a State prison. 
His property was sequestrated, his papers were seized, 
and the Nuncio, when he protested, was threatened 
with dismissal. Henry the Eighth himself could not 
have been more peremptory in his contempt of sacred 
privileges than the ministers of the Most Catholic 
King. The documents were at once examined. The 
secret correspondence was found to have been abstracted. 
Juana de Coello was supposed to have it ; and, to extort 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 151 

it from her, she and her children were carried off also, 
and confined in the same castle with her husband. It 
was true that she had some part of the private papers, 
and threats of torture could not wring them from her 
till she had ascertained that those of most special con- 
sequence were not among them. She found some one 
who would take a note to her husband. Being without 
ink she wrote it with her blood. The answer came 
back that she might deliver the papers without fear, 
the Escovedo notes being secured elsewhere. She 
mentioned where the boxes would be found. The 
King's confessor himself came to her to receive the 
keys. He, too, had some sense remaining of right and 
wrong, and he told her that if Perez was troubled any 
further, he would himself go ' como un loco/ like a 
madman, into the Plaza, and proclaim the truth to all 
the world. 

The boxes being surrendered, Juana de Coello and 
the children were sent home, there being no longer 
occasion for keeping them. As the confessor was going 
off, she could not help telling him that there were still a 
few papers reserved. The King, when he came to look, 
must have discovered that this was fatally true. All 
else was in its place, even to the most secret ciphered 
correspondence; but the fifty or sixty especial letters, 
which he knew himself to have written, about Escovedo, 
and knew also that Perez had preserved — these were 
not to be discovered. That, if he had got possession 
of these letters, Philip would have allowed Perez to be 
tried and executed, is not certain ; but it may have 



[52 ANTONIO PEREZ: 

been well for him that he was not exposed to the 
temptation. As matters stood, the judges might refuse 
to admit the letters, and might pass sentence on the 
evidence. But Juana de Coello could carry the damn- 
ing records into Aragon, or across the frontier, and 
publish them ; and all Europe would cry out ' Shame 1 ' 
Nor was the Church idle. The Church authorities, 
with the Pope behind them, demanded that Perez 
should be restored to sanctuary. Worried, impatient, 
cursing the day that he had ever blundered into so 
detestable a quagmire, the King again paused. Once 
more the prison doors were opened ; once more Perez 
was brought back to Madrid, and lodged in a handsome 
house with his family. Evidently the unfortunate 
King was at his wits' end, and could not determine 
what course to choose. Perez went to church for 
mass. The great people came as before to show him 
countenance. He himself addressed many letters to 
the King, which were carefully read, if not answered. 
The Archbishop of Toledo, in particular, was confident 
that all would be well. The attitude of the Church 
alone, he said, would suffice to protect Perez. The 
President Podrigo would have gone on gladly with the 
trial, but obstacles were continually arising. Some one 
asked him what was to be done. ' How can I tell 
you ? ' he replied. ' One day the King says go on, the 
next he says hold back. There is a mystery which I 
cannot make out.' 

Fourteen months thus drifted away. At the end of 
them the King could hold out no longer. There was 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 153 

still but a single witness, for Diego Martinez bad so far 
continued stauncb. He might confess, perhaps, if he 
was tortured, but torture could not be used without the 
King's permission. Philip wrote to Perez telling him 
generally that he might rely on his protection, but 
without saying what steps he was prepared to take. 
Perez was brought to trial at last before President 
Rodrigo. He stood upon his innocence, denied that he 
had murdered Escovedo, and denied all knowledge of 
the matter. Enriquez gave his evidence with correct- 
ness; but Diego Martinez, who was confronted with 
him, said he was a liar, and his story a fabrication. 
Conviction on such terms was not to be had. Perez's 
papers were handed to President Rodrigo to be examined. 
He searched them through, but found nothing to the 
purpose. Perez, after all, would probably have been 
acquitted, but for the intervention of a 'Deus ex 
machina,' Philip himself, who interposed in a manner 
the most unlooked for. This is the most extraordinary 
feature in the whole extraordinary story. Philip, it 
might have been thought, would have welcomed Perez's 
acquittal as the happiest escape from his embarrass- 
ments; but it seems that his conscience was really 
disturbed at the success of deliberate perjury. Just as 
it became clear that the prosecution had failed, and that 
Perez, whether guilty or not, could not be pronounced 
guilty without a violation of the laws, Philip's confessor, 
as if from himself, but of course with his master's 
sanction, wrote to him to say that although he had 
killed Escovedo, he had a complete defence for it. 



154 ANTONIO PEREZ. 

When the truth was known, his character would be 
cleared ; he advised him, therefore, to make a complete 
confession, and at once say that he had acted by the 
King's order. 

This was written on September 3, the year after the 
defeat of the Armada. Through all that famous 
enterprise, from its first conception to the final catas- 
trophe, this mean business had simmered on, and was 
at last at boiling-point. 

Well as Perez knew his master, he was not prepared 
for this last move. What could it mean ? The King 
had promised to stand by him. But if he confessed, 
his guilt would be clear. He might say what he pleased, 
but the judges might hang him notwithstanding. 
There was Diego Martinez, too, to be thought of. He 
would he hanged, at any rate. So long as the proof 
was deficient, confession would be insanity. The King, 
besides, had positively ordered that the motives for the 
murder were not to be introduced. 

In this tone he replied to Diego de Chaves; but 
the confessor stood to his opinion. Evidently he had 
consulted Philip again. 

'The plain course for you/ he answered, 'is to say 
directly that you had the King's orders for Escovedo's 
death. You need not enter on the reasons. You 
ought not to make a false oath in a court of justice ; 
and if you have done so already you ought not to 
persevere in it. Where there has been no fault there 
can be no punishment, and confession will only show 
the innocence of yourself and your accomplice. When 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 155 

the truth is out, the wound will heal, and his Majesty 
will have given the Escovedo family the justice which 
they demand. If they persist after this, they can be 
silenced or banished. Only, once more, the causes 
which led the King to act as he did are not to be 
mentioned.' 

M. Mignet considers that these letters were written 
to tempt Perez to a confession, in order that he might 
be destroyed. The judges would ask for proof, and, 
having lost his papers, he would be unable to produce 
it. The answer is simple. Both Philip and the Confessor 
were aware that the compromising letters were still in 
possession of either Perez or his wife. Perez, who was 
not troubled about perjury, thought it safer to risk an 
uncertainty than to act as the confessor advised. To 
confess was to place his life in the judges' hands. He 
could feel no certainty that the King's orders would be 
held a sufficient authority. Philip's conduct had been 
strange from the beginning, and kings' consciences are 
not like the consciences of private individuals. They 
may profess to wish one thing, while their duty as 
sovereigns requires another. There was another alter- 
native ; the Escovedos, who were now the only pro- 
secutors, might agree to a compromise. Perez proposed 
it to the confessor; the confessor permitted Perez to 
try, if the King was not to be a party to the trans- 
action : overtures were made, and were successful. The 
Escovedo family consented to withdraw their suit on 
receiving twenty thousand ducats. 

This seemed like the end; and if there had been 



156 ANTONTO PEREZ: 

nothing more in Escovedo's death than an ordinary- 
murder, the compensation would have been held 
sufficient, and the end would have really come. But ' 
behind the private wrong there was a great question at 
issue, whether the sovereign had or had not a right to 
make away with his subjects when he believed them 
criminal, because for reasons of State it was inexpedient 
to bring them to trial. Though Castile had no longer 
constitutional rights like Aragon, a high-minded people 
(as the Castilians were) had a regard for their own 
security. The doctrine had been condemned by the 
Holy Office, and the judges can have liked it as little. 

The opportunity of bringing the matter to a point 
was not to be lost. The President Rodrigo wrote to 
Philip that his reputation was at stake. The prosecu- 
tion had been dropped, but the world was convinced, 
notwithstanding, that the murder had been committed 
by his order. It concerned his honour that Perez 
should explain why that order had been given. He 
begged the King to send him an instruction in the 
following terms : ' Tell Antonio Perez, in my name, 
that, as he knows the causes for which I commanded 
him to kill Escovedo, I desire him to declare what 
those causes were/ 

M. Mignet adheres to his opinion that Perez was to 
be betrayed ; that, being without his papers, he must 
fail to prove what he was required to reveal, and could 
then be executed as a slanderer and an assassin. It 
would be difficult for him and perhaps impossible to 
recall satisfactorily a condition of things which was now 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 157 

buried under the incidents of twelve eventful years. 
But there is no occasion to suspect Philip of such 
deliberate treachery. The stages through which his 
mind had passed can easily be traced. He never 
doubted the righteousness of Escovedo's execution ; 
but he had been afraid to irritate his brother, and had 
therefore wished his own part in it to be concealed. 
Therefore, when Perez was first suspected, he had not 
come forward, to protect him ; and therefore also he 
had connived at the direction of the suspicion on the 
Princess of Eboli. A long time had passed away, Don 
John was gone, the aspect of Europe had changed. 
He had no longer the same reluctance to admit that he 
had ordered the murder ; but he had bidden Perez be 
silent about the causes, because, though sufficient for 
his own conscience, it would be hard, when circum- 
stances were so much altered, to make them intelligible 
to others. The Spaniards of 1590, smarting under the 
destruction of the Armada, might well have thought if 
Don John and the Duke of Guise had tried the ' enter- 
prise' together, when the Queen of Scots was alive, 
so many of their homes would not then have been 
desolate. 

But public opinion was excited. The compromise of 
the prosecution seemed to imply that there was some- 
thing disgraceful behind. A secret half revealed is 
generally more dangerous than the truth ; and thus, 
when called on by the judges to direct Perez to make 
a full confession, the King felt that it was better to 
consent. 



15,8 ANTONTO PEREZ: 

This explanation seems sufficient, without looking 
for sinister motives. The order was written, and Perez 
was required to obey. 

It might have been thought that he would have 
seen in such an order the easiest escape from his 
troubles. To speak was to be acquitted (at least 
morally) of a worse crime than of having been a too 
faithful servant. But it is likely that he did feel it 
would be difficult for him to make out a satisfactory 
case. He could produce the King's instructions, and 
could describe the motive in general terms. But State 
reasons for irregular actions are always looked askance 
at, and loyal subjects are inclined to excuse their 
sovereigns at the expense of their advisers. Perez 
might naturally fear that he would be accused of 
having misled the King, perhaps through malice. This 
view was taken of the case by the Archbishop of Toledo. 
€ Seiior,' he said to the confessor when he heard of this 
fresh command, ' either I am mad or this whole affair is 
mad. If the King bade Perez kill Escovedo, why does 
he ask for the causes? The King knew them at the 
time. Perez was not Escovedo's judge. He placed 
before the King certain despatches. The King directed 
a course to be taken upon them, and Perez obeyed. 
Now after twelve years, without his papers, with so 
many persons gone who could have given evidence, he 
is asked for explanations. Give him back his papers, 
bring back five hundred persons now dead out of their 
graves ; and even then he will not be able to do it/ 

The Archbishop protested, the Nuncio protested. 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 159 

Juana de Coello and Perez's children wept and 
clamoured ; but President Podrigo, with the King's 
orders in his hand, persisted that Perez should speak. 
Three times successively, in the course of a month, he 
was brought into court, and he remained stubborn. He 
says that he would not confess, because the King had 
personally ordered him to be silent, and that a written 
form could not supersede an immediate direction, 
without a private intimation that it was to be obeyed. 
This is evidently an insufficient explanation. He must 
have felt that if he detailed the causes for the murder 
he admitted the fact ; and that if he admitted the fact 
he might be sacrificed. 

But the King was determined that the whole truth 
should be told at last, and that, as he could not tell it 
himself, it should be told by Perez. After a month's 
resistance, the question was applied in earnest. Perez 
was tortured. He broke down under the pain, and 
told all. It was then that Dona Juana appealed to 
God against Diego de Chaves in the Dominican chapel. 
It was then that Dona Gregoria dared President 
Rodrigo in his hall. What the King or the judges 
had intended to do next, is mere conjecture. Diego 
Martinez, when his master had spoken, confessed also. 
He was not punished, and Perez perhaps would not 
have been punished either. The judges might have 
been contented with the exposure. But Perez did not 
care to tempt fortune or Philip's humours further. His 
wife was allowed to visit him in prison. He escaped 
disguised in her clothes. Horses were waiting, he rode 



160 ANTONIO PEREZ: 

for his life to Aragon, and the next day was safe 
beyond the frontier. 

So ends the first part of the tragi-comedy. The 
next opened on another stage and with wider issues. 

The Fueros or ' Liberties ' of Aragon were the only 
surviving remnant of the free institutions of the Penin- 
sula. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the 
two Castiles, Valencia, Granada, and Aragon had their 
separate administrations and their separate legislatures. 
The great cities had their municipal corporations, while 
Portugal till within ten years had been an independent 
kingdom. One by one they had been absorbed. Ara- 
gon remained still free, but with a freedom which had 
been found inconvenient at Madrid, and was unvalued 
by the most powerful of the Aragonese nobles them- 
selves. The tendency of the age was towards centralis- 
ation, and the tenure of the Fueros had been growing 
yearly more precarious. Isabella had been impatient 
for a revolt which would give her an excuse for extin- 
guishing them. The Duke of Alva more lately, on 
some provocation, said that with three or four thousand 
of his old soldiers he would make the King's authority 
supreme. Such as it was, however, the Constitution 
still subsisted, being supported chiefly by the populace 
of the towns, who, as long as noise and clamour were 
sufficient, were the enthusiastic champions of their 
national privileges. A council for the administration 
of the province sat at Madrid, but its powers were 
limited to advice. The Cortes met annually at Sara- 
gossa to vote the taxes, but the King could neither 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 161 

prorogue nor dissolve them without their own consent. 
A Committee of the Cortes carried on the government, 
and in the intervals of the sessions remained in office. 
The Aragonese had their own laws, their own judges, 
their own police, their own prisons: and no 'alien' 
armed force was permitted within their boundaries. 
The Grand Justiciary, the highest executive officer, was 
nominated by the King, but could not be deprived by 
him. A Royal Commissioner resided in Saragossa, to 
observe and to report, to act in cases to which the 
Crown was a party, perhaps irregularly to distribute 
favours and influence opinion. But this was the limit 
of his interference. The Commissioner in the year 
1590 was Inigo de Mendoza, Marquis of Almenara, the 
cousin and the chief antagonist of the Princess of Eboli. 
Such was Aragon when Antonio Perez nought an 
asylum in the land of his fathers. He professed to 
have been tortured till his limbs were disabled, but he 
was able to ride without resting till he had crossed the 
frontier and had reached Calatayud. He made no effort, 
perhaps he was too weak, to go further, and he took 
refuge in a Dominican convent. Within ten hours of 
his arrival an express came in from Madrid to a private 
gentleman, Don Manuel Zapata, with orders to take 
him, dead or alive, and send him back to his master. 
Perez says that when his flight was known at the 
court, there was general satisfaction. * Uncle Martin,' 
the palace jester, said to Philip the next morning, 'Sir, 
all the world rejoices at the escape of Antonio Perez ; 
he cannot be very wicked ; you should rejoice too.' 



162 ANTONIO PEREZ, 



Philip did not rejoice at all. He had put himself in 
the power of one of his subjects, and he did not choose 
to remain any longer in so degrading a position. When 
he had been himself willing to submit his conduct to a 
judicial inquiry, Perez, who had less to fear if he had 
been acting uprightly, had shown so much unwilling- 
ness that possibly Philip may have now doubted 
whether Escovedo's conduct had after all been properly 
represented to him. Perez had fled, carrying the com- 
promising documents along with him ; he was probably 
on his way to France, to delight Philip's enemies with 
the sight of them, and with the tale of his own wrongs. 
Anticipating pursuit, Perez had sent a friend, Gil de 
Mesa, to the Grand Justiciary, to signify his arrival, 
and to put himself under the protection of the law. 
Meanwhile, the town mob at Calatayud rose in his 
defence, and when Don Manuel arrived at the monas- 
tery he found the priests and students in arms to 
protect their sanctuary. Fifty soldiers arrived immedi- 
ately after from Saragossa. The orders of the Justiciary 
were to bring Perez at once to the national prison of 
the Manifestacion, where he was to be detained till the 
King could be communicated with. The King's reply 
was an order to the Marquis of Almenara to prosecute 
him immediately in the Court of Aragon on three 
charges. 

1. For having caused the death of Escovedo, falsely 
pretending the King's authority. 

2. For having betrayed secrets of State and tam- 
pered with ciphered desjoatches. 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 163 

3. For having fled from justice when his conduct 
was being judicially inquired into. 

If Perez had been wholly innocent, he would have 
felt that he had at last an opportunity of setting him- 
self clear in the face of the world. The court would 
be open, the trial public, and his defence could neither 
be garbled nor suppressed. His reluctance was as 
vehement as ever, and was not concealed by his affecta- 
tion of a desire to spare his master. From Calatayud, 
and from Saragossa afterwards, he wrote letter upon 
letter both to Philip and to Diego de Chaves, protesting 
his loyalty, entreating to be left in quiet with his wife 
and children; indicating that he had the means of 
defending himself, but hoping that he might not be 
forced to use them. These letters being left unanswered, 
he took into his confidence a distinguished Aragonese 
ecclesiastic, the Prior of Gotor. He showed the Prior 
the mysterious papers which he had brought with him, 
with Philip's notes upon them, and desired him to go 
at once to Madrid and demand an audience of Philip. 
' His Majesty/ Perez said in his instructions to the 
Prior, 'must know that I possess these documents. 
They contain confidential secrets affecting others be- 
sides Escovedo ; let his Majesty judge whether it is 
desirable that evidences should be produced in court 
which touch the reputation of distinguished persons, 
which will create a scandal throughout Europe, and 
will reflect on the prudence and piety of his Majesty 
himself. Though the confessor has taken most of my 
papers from me, Providence has been pleased that I 



1 64 ANTONIO PEREZ: 

should retain these, and these will suffice for my de- 
fence. If brought to trial I shall certainly be acquitted, 
but I prefer to save the King's reputation ; my case is 
now notorious, and it will not be wise to challenge the 
world's opinion. I have been shorn like a lamb for 
eleven years, and I have held my peace. My blood has 
been shed. I have been tortured in a dungeon, and I 
have remained faithful. In eight or ten days I must 
give in my answer. Some people tell me that I ought 
rather to lose my head than speak ; but if I am driven 
to it the truth must be told.' 

The Prior went. Philip saw him more than once, 
and heard what he had to say. There could be no 
doubt that Perez had the compromising letters, for the 
Prior had seen them. Yet Philip's courage did not fail 
him. After Perez's flight the Court of Castile had 
given judgment against him in default. He was to be 
dragged through the streets and hanged. His head 
was to be cut off and exposed, and all his property was 
to be confiscated. The answer to the mission of the 
Prior of Gotor was the publication of his sentence. 

Perez thus driven to bay took up the challenge. 
He drew a memorial containing his own account of the 
causes of Escovedo's murder. He attached it to such 
notes as sufficed to prove the King's complicity, reserv- 
ing others in case of future necessity; and this was 
publicly presented as his reply to the Marquis of 
Almenara. The King had probably expected that the 
judges of Aragon would not lightly accept so grave a 
charge against their sovereign ; that they would respect 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 165 

the sentence of the better-informed Court of Castile, 
and would understand that there was something behind 
which was left unexplained. But Aragon was excited, 
and chose to show its independence. After the 
admission of the memorial Don Inigo sent word to the 
King, that if no further evidence were produced, Perez 
would certainly be acquitted. The King believed that 
he had other resources at his disposition by which com- 
plete defeat could be avoided, and at the last moment 
directed that the case before the Grand Justiciary should 
be abandoned. ' If,' said Philip, ' it was possible to reply 
with the same publicity which Perez has given to his 
defence, his guilt would be proved, and he would be 
condemned. Throughout this whole affair I have con- 
sidered only the public good. The long imprisonment 
of Perez, the entire course which the cause has taken, 
has had no other object. Abusing my clemency, and 
afraid of the issue, he so defends himself that to answer 
him I must publish secrets which ought not to be 
revealed, and involve persons whose reputation is of 
more consequence than the punishment of a single 
offender. Therefore, I shall go no further with the prose- 
cution in the Court of Aragon. I declare Perez to have 
sinned worse than ever vassal sinned before against his 
sovereign — both in time, form, and circumstance ; and I 
desire this my declaration to be entered with my notice 
of withdrawal. Truth, which I have always main- 
tained, must suffer no injury. And I reserve such rights 
as appertain, or may appertain to me, of bringing the 
offender to account for his crimes in any other manner.' 



1 66 ANTONIO PEREZ: 

The 'other manner' was through the Court of En- 
questa. In the Constitution of Aragon, a special 
reservation excluded from protection the King's servants 
and officials. Over these the law of the province had 
no more authority than the King was pleased to allow 
— and the King under this clause claimed to have 
Perez surrendered to himself. The local lawyers, how- 
ever, interpreted ' servants ' to mean only servants in 
Aragon and engaged in the affairs in Aragon, not persons 
belonging to other countries or other provinces. Ara- 
gonese, who accepted Crown employment, undertook it 
with their eyes open and at their own risk, and might 
be supposed to have consented to their exemption ; but 
such a case as that of Perez had not been contemplated 
when the clause in the Constitution was allowed. But 
the King had one more resource. Though acquitted, 
the prisoner was still detained, as if the authorities 
were unsatisfied of his real innocence. Perez had 
grown impatient, and, in his loose, vain way, had 
babbled to his companions in the Manifestacion, and 
his language had been so extravagant that it had been 
noted down and forwarded to the court He had 
threatened to fly to France or Holland, when he would 
make the King repent of his treatment of him. He 
had compared himself to Marius, who had been driven 
into exile and had returned to the consulship. He 
said that he would raise a revolt in Castile ; he would 
bring in Henry the Fourth ; he would make Aragon 
into a Free Republic like Venice. He spoke of Philip 
as another Pharaoh. He had ventured into more 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 167 

dangerous ground, and had called into question the 
mysteries of the faith. Some of these rash expressions 
had been noted down in writing, with the solemn reflec- 
tions on them of the King's confessor. The impatient 
wretch had said, that ' if God the Father had allowed 
the King to behave so disloyally to him he would take 
God the Father by the nose/ The confessor observes, 
' This proposition is blasphemous, scandalous, offensive 
to pious ears, and savouring of the heresy of the 
Vadiani, who affirmed that God was corporeal and had 
human members. Nor was it an excuse to say that 
Christ, being made man, had a nose, since the words 
were spoken of the First Person.' 

Again, Perez had said, ' God is asleep in this affair 
of mine. If He works no miracle for me, it will go near 
to destroy the faith.' 

1 This proposition,' the confessor noted, ' is scandalous. 
The prisoner has been accused of the greatest enormities; 
he has been tried by course of law and condemned to 
death, and he speaks as if he was without fault.' 

Worse still. Perez had gone on, ' God sleeps ! God 
sleeps ! God is an idle tale ; there cannot be a God ! ' 

The confessor observes, ' This proposition is heretical, 
as if God had no care for human things, when the Bible 
and the Church affirm that He does care. To say that 
there cannot be a God is heresy, for though it be said in 
doubt, yet doubt is not allowed in matters of faith ; we 
must believe without doubt.' 

Lastly, Perez had said, ' If things pass thus, I cannot 
believe in God.' 



1 68 ANTONIO PEREZ: 

The confessor notes, ' This is blasphemous, scandal- 
ous, and offensive, and savours of heresy also.' 

The confessor's ears had no doubt been outraged. 
Many a poor sinner had gone to the stake for less 
audacious utterances. For nine months after the failure 
with the Enquesta, Perez remained in the Manifestacion, 
pouring out these wild outcries. At the end of them 
an order came from the Holy Office at Madrid to the 
three Inquisitors at Saragossa to take possession of his 
person and remove him to their own prison in the old 
Moorish palace of the Aljaferia. 

The Inquisitor-General of Spain was his old friend 
the Archbishop of Toledo. In Madrid the Inquisition 
had been well disposed towards him, and once he had 
thrown himself on its protection. Had he now sub- 
mitted voluntarily, he would probably have been safe 
from serious injury, and an impartial decision would 
have been arrived at. The Inquisition, be it remem- 
bered, was no slave of the Crown, and, though a cruel 
guardian of orthodoxy, would not have looked too 
narrowly at the fretful words of a man whom the Arch- 
bishop believed to have been ill used. The judges of 
Aragon were by this time satisfied that Perez was not 
entirely the martyr which he pretended to be, and that 
the King had something to say for himself. Philip, 
who appears to Protestant Europe a monster of in- 
justice, was in Spain respected and esteemed. The 
Grand Justiciary did not wish to quarrel with the 
Crown in a case so doubtful, still less to quarrel with 
the Holy Office, and was preparing quietly to comply. 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 169 

Bat Perez would not have it so, and preferred to trust 
to popular jealousy. A mob is always ready to listen 
when it is told that Liberty is in danger. A story was 
circulated in Saragossa that the Marquis of Almenara 
had bribed the prisoners in the Manifestacion to send 
in a false account of Perez's language, that the Inqui- 
sition was claiming a right which did not belong to it, 
that the Fueros were being betrayed, and that the 
Araofonese were to be made slaves of the Gastilians. 
Symptoms showed themselves of an intended rising, 
and the Justiciary and Don Inigo, after a night's con- 
ference, agreed that Perez should be removed at once 
and without notice to the Inquisition prison. At noon 
on May 24, 1591, he was quietly placed in a carriage at 
the Manifestacion Gate. A knot of young men tried 
to stop the horses, and clamoured for the Constitution ; 
but they were told that it was cosa de fey, an affair of 
religion, and that they must mind their own business. 
The carriage reached the Aljaferia without interruption, 
and Perez was in the Inquisitors' hands. But on the 
instant Saragossa was in arms. The alarm bell boomed 
out. The market-place swarmed with a furious multi- 
tude shouting ' Fueros, Fueros ! Libertad, Libertad ! ' 
Their plans had been already laid. Half the mob went 
to attack the Aljaferia, the others to the house of 
Philip's representative, the Marquis of Almenara. He, 
too, it is likely, had remembered that Perez was the 
friend of the Princess of Eboli, and had thrown himself 
into the quarrel with some degree of personal animosity. 
He was now to expiate his eagerness. He was urged 



t 



170 ANTONIO PEREZ: 

to fly. The Mendozas, he answered, never fled. The 
palace door was dashed in. The Justiciary, who had 
hurried to protect him, was thrown down and trampled 
on. Don Inigo was seized, dragged out, and borne 
away among cries of ' Muera, muera ! Kill him, kill 
him!' Stripped naked, his clothes torn off, his arms 
almost forced out of their sockets, struck and pelted 
with stones, he was at last rescued by a party of police, 
who carried him into the city prison. There, a fortnight 
after, he died of his injuries, so ending his lawsuit Avith 
the widow of Ruy Gomez. 

The Inquisitors at the Aljaferia had a near escape 
of the same fate. The walls were strong and the gates 
massive. But the fierce people brought faggots in 
cartloads, and raised a pile which would have reduced 
the palace and all in it to dust and ashes. The In- 
quisitors, they said, had burnt others ; they should now 
burn themselves unless Perez was instantly released. 
The Inquisitors would have held out, but the Arch- 
bishop of Saragossa, Almenara's brother, insisted that 
/ they must yield. Perez, four hours only after they had 
seized him, was given back to his friends, and borne 
away in triumph. 

But the mob had risen for the rights of Aragon, and 
not, after all, for a prisoner of whose innocence even 
they were unconvinced. Perez imagined himself a 
national hero. He had expected that the Cortes would 
take up his case, that he would be allowed to present 
himself at the bar, and detail the story of his wrongs 
in Philip's own presence. The leaders of the people 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 171 

had formed a cooler estimate of his merits. They con- 
tented themselves with taking him back to the Mani- 
festacion. The officials of the province went up to 
Madrid, to deliberate with the court what was next to 
be clone. 

For Perez personally there was no enthusiasm. If 
the Inquisition would acknowledge the Fueros, the 
sensible people of Saragossa were ready to surrender 
him. The Inquisition made the necessary concessions, 
and Perez's own supporters now advised him to submit 
unreservedly. But this he did not dare to do ; he tried 
to escape from the Manifestacion and failed. He ap- 
pealed again to the mob. Broad-sheets were printed 
and circulated declaring that the officials were betray- 
ing the Fueros, and though the chiefs of the first 
insurrection had withdrawn, the multitude could still 
be wrought upon. Unfortunately for Aragon, the Grand 
Justiciary, Don Juan de Lanuza, a wise and prudent 
man, suddenly died. Had he lived a few weeks longer 
he might have saved his country, but it was not so to 
be. The nomination of his successor belonged to the 
King, but the office had by custom become hereditary 
in the Lanuza family ; Don Juan's son, a generous hot- 
headed youth, claimed to act without waiting for the 
King's sanction, and, fatally for himself, was ruled or 
influenced by his uncle, Don Martin, who was Perez's 
most intimate ally. The officials had returned from 
the court. The Council of Saragossa had decided that 
Perez should be restored to the Holy Office. The 
removal was to be effected on the following morning, 



172 ANTONIO PEREZ: 

September 24 ; bat when the morning came the mob 
were out again. The Manifestacion was broken open, 
the council room was set on fire, and Perez was again 
released. It was understood, however, that he was not 
to remain any longer at Saragossa to be a future occasion 
of quarrel. He was escorted a league out of the city 
on the road to the Pyrenees, and he was made to know 
that if he returned he would not be protected. He did 
return; he pretended that the roads were unsafe, but 
he came back in secret, and in the closest disguise, and 
lay concealed in Don Martin's house till it could be 
seen how the King would act. 

Constitutional governments which cannot govern 
are near their end. When the intelligent and the 
educated part of the population are superseded by the 
mob, they cannot continue zealous for forms of freedom 
which to them are slavery. The mob has usurped the 
power ; if it can defend its actions successfully, it makes 
good the authority which it has seized ; if it fails, the 
blame is with itself. The Aragon executive had pro- 
tected Perez on his arrival in the province, they had 
given him the means of making an open defence, and, 
so far as their own council could decide in his cause, 
they had pronounced him acquitted. But there were 
charges against him which could not be openly pleaded, 
and his innocence was not so clear that it would be 
right as yet to risk a civil war in a case so ambiguous. 
The judges considered that enough had been done. The 
mob and the young Justiciary thought otherwise, and 
with them the responsibility rested. 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 173 

Philip was in no hurry. Ten thousand men were 
collected quietly on the frontier under Don Alonzo de 
Vargas. The sentiments of the principal persons were 
sounded, and it was ascertained that from those who 
could offer serious resistance there was none to be 
anticipated. Liberty had lost its attractions when it 
meant the protection of criminals by the town rabble. 
That the mob had shaken themselves clear of Perez 
made little difference to Philip, for they had taken him 
by force out of prison. The middle-class citizens, who 
still prized their Constitution, believed, on the other 
hand, or at least some of them believed, that the King 
had no longer an excuse for interfering with them. 
Philip so far respected their alarm that before he 
ordered the advance of the troops he sent out a pro- 
clamation that the Constitution would not be disturbed ; 
and possibly, if there had been no opposition, he would 
have found his course less clear. But the more eager 
spirits could not be restrained ; the nobles held aloof ; 
the young Justiciary, however, was ardent and enthusi- 
astic — he was compromised besides, for he had taken 
office without waiting for the King's permission. The 
invasion was an open breach of the Fueros. He called 
the citizens of Saragossa to arms, and sent appeals for 
help to Barcelona and the other towns. 

There was no response — a sufficient proof either 
that the province was indifferent, or that the cause was 
regarded as a bad one. Lanuza led out a tattered 
multitude of shopkeepers and workmen to meet the 
Castilians ; but, though brave enough in a city insur- 



174 ANTONIO PEREZ: 

rection, they had no stomach for fighting with a 
disciplined force. They turned and scattered without 
a blow, and Alonzo de Vargas entered Saragossa 
November 12, 1591. 

The modern doctrine, that political offences are 
virtues in disguise, was not yet the creed even of the 
most advanced philosophers. The Saragossa rabble 
had resisted the lawful authorities of the province. 
They had stormed a prison; they had murdered the 
King's representative; fatallest of all, they had taken 
arms for liberty, and had wanted courage to fight for it. 
The Justiciary was executed, and fifteen or twenty other 
persons. The attack on the Aljaferia was an act of 
sacrilege, and the wrongs of the Inquisition were 
avenged more severely. A hundred and twenty- three 
of the most prominent of the mob were arrested. Of 
these, seventy-nine were burnt in the market-place. 
The ceremony began at eight in the morning; it closed 
at night, when there was no light but from the blazing 
faggots ; the last figure that was consumed was the 
effigy of Antonio Perez, the original cause of the catas- 
trophe. The punishment being concluded, the Consti- 
tution was abolished. The armed resistance was held 
to have dispensed with Philip's promises, and the Fueros 
of Aragon were at an end. 

Perez himself escaped on the night on which the 
Castilians entered, and made his way through the 
Pyrenees to Pau. He published a narrative of his 
sufferings — that is, his own version of them, with the 
further incriminating documents which the Protestant 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RLDDLE. 175 

world at once received with greedy acclamations. Much 
of what he said was probably true ; much might have 
worn another complexion if the other side had been 
told. But Philip never condescended to reply. Perez 
was taken up by Henry the Fourth, pensioned, trusted, 
and employed so long as the war with Spain continued. 
He was sent into England. He was received by Eliza- 
beth ; entertained by Essex, and admitted into ac- 
quaintance by Francis Bacon — not with the approval 
of Bacon's mother, who disliked him from the first. He 
was plausible; he was polished; he was acute. He 
had been so long intimately acquainted with Spanish 
secrets, that his information w r as always useful and 
often of the highest value. But he was untrue at the 
heart. Even his own Relation is in many points 
inconsistent with itself, and betrays the inward hollow- 
ness ; while his estimate of his own merits w r ent beyond 
what his most foolish friends could believe or acknow- 
ledge. Gradually he was seen through both in Paris 
and London. When peace came he was thrown aside, 
and sank into neglect and poverty. He attempted 
often, but always fruitlessly, to obtain his pardon from 
Philip the Third, and eventually died miserably in a 
Paris lodging, a worn-out old man of seventy-two, on 
November 3, 161 1. 

So ends the story of a man who, if his personal 
merits alone were concerned, might have been left 
forgotten among the unnumbered millions who have 
played their chequered parts on the stage of the world. 
Circumstances, and the great religious revolution of the 



176 ANTONIO PEREZ: 

sixteenth century, converted Philip in the eyes of half 
Europe into a malignant demon. The darkest inter- 
pretations were thrown upon every unexplained action 
which he committed ; and Antonio Perez became the 
hero of a romance fitter for a third-rate theatre than 
the pages of accredited history. The imaginative 
features of it have now disappeared, but there remains 
an instructive picture of Philip's real character. He 
said that he had been guided throughout by no motive 
save concern for the public welfare, and there is no 
reason to suppose that he was saying anything except 
what he believed to be true ; yet he so acted as to invite 
suspicion in every step which he took. 

Escovedo, as his conduct was represented by Perez, 
deserved to be punished, perhaps to be punished 
severely. To prosecute him publicly would have been 
doubtless inconvenient; and Philip, without giving him 
an opportunity of defending himself, undertook the 
part of a secret Providence, and allowed him to be 
struck in the dark without explaining his reasons. 
Providence does not permit vain mortals, even though 
they be Catholic kings, to usurp a jurisdiction which is 
reserved for itself. It punished Philip by throwing him 
into the power of an unscrupulous intriguer, who had, 
perhaps, in some measure really mislead him on the 
extent of Escovedo's faults. 

He tried to extricate himself, but he was entangled 
in the net which his own hands had woven ; and, when 
Perez refused to assist him, and preferred to keep him 
struggling at his mercy, he was driven to measures 



AN UNSOLVED HISTORICAL RIDDLE. 177 

which could be represented to the world as a base 
persecution of the instrument of his own crimes. Thus 
out of an unwise ambition to exercise the attributes of 
omniscience, the poor King laid himself open to ground- 
less accusations, and the worst motives which could be 
supposed to have actuated him were those which found 
easiest credit. 

But the legend of the loves of Philip the Second 
and the Princess of Eboli was not of Spanish growth. 
The Relation of Perez was read in the Peninsula, but 
it did not shake the confidence with which Philip was 
regarded by his subjects. The Fueros of Aragon 
perished, but they perished only because constitutional 
liberties which degenerate into anarchy are already ripe 
for an end. 



SAINT TEEESA. 1 

Reprinted from the ' Quarterly Review. 1 



ON the western slope of the Guadarrama mountains, 
midway between Medina del Campo and the Escu- 
rial, stands the ancient town of Avila. From the windows 
of the railway carriage can be seen the massive walls 
and flanking towers, raised in the eleventh century in 
the first heat of the Spanish crusade. The fortifications 
themselves tell the story of their origin. The garrison 
of Avila were soldiers of Christ, and the cathedral was 
built into the bastions, in the front line of defence, as 
an emblem of the genius of the age. Time has scarcely 
touched the solid masonry. E-uy Diaz and his con- 
temporaries have vanished into legend ; but these 
silent monuments of the old Castilian character survive 
to remind us what manner of men the builders of them 
were. Revolutions on revolutions overflow the Spanish 



1 i. Acta S. Teresice a Jesu 
Carmelitarum strictioris Obser 
vantice Parentis. Illustrata £ 
Joscplio Vaiidermoere, Societatis I 



Jesu Presbytero Theologo. Bru- 
xellis, 1845. 2 - Obras de Santa 
Teresa de Jisus. Barcelona, 1 844. 



SATNT TERESA. 179 

peninsula, condemn the peasantry to poverty, and the 
soil to barrenness; but they have not in these later 
times unearthed in the process a single man like those 
whose names are part of European history. They have 
produced military adventurers, and orators like Castelar, 
of ' transcendent eloquence ' ; but no Cid, no Grand 
Captain, no Alva, not even a Cortez or a Pizarro. The 
Prooresista of our age has a long ascent before him if 
he is to rise to the old level. 

The situation of Avila is extremely picturesque, 
standing in the midst of grey granite sierras, covered 
with pine forests, and intersected with clear mountain 
rivulets. It is now thinly populated, and, like most 
towns in Spain, has fallen into decay and neglect ; but 
the large solid mansions, the cathedral, the churches, 
the public buildings, the many convents and monasteries, 
though mostly gone to waste and ruin, show that once 
it was full of busy, active life, of men and women 
playing their parts there in the general drama of their 
country. 

In the Spain of Ferdinand and Isabella there were 
two peculiarities : first, that there was no recognised 
capital, for the provinces which formed the monarchy 
were still imperfectly cemented; and secondly, that 
the nobles and gentry, the senores and the hidalgos, 
had their chief residences in the towns, and not on their 
estates. The causes and consequences of this practice 
of theirs it would be interesting to trace, were the 
present the occasion for it, but of the fact itself there is 
no doubt at all. Of feudal chateaux and manor-houses, 



180 SAINT TERESA. 

so numerous in France and England, there were not 
many in any part of Spain, and very few in the Castiles. 
The landed aristocracy congregated within the walls of 
the provincial cities. Their palaces are still to be seen 
in grand and gaunt neglect, with their splendid stair- 
cases, their quadrangles, their columned verandahs, the 
coats of arms carved over the portals. In the cities 
also were the learned professions : the lawyers, the 
doctors, the secular clergy, the religious orders. The 
Court moved from place to place, and there was no 
central focus to draw away men of superior rank or 
superior talents from their local homes. The com- 
munications were difficult ; the roads were horse-tracks ; 
the rivers, save where some enterprising municipality 
had built a bridge, were crossed only by fords and 
pontoons. Thus each important town was the heart of 
a separate district, a complete epitome of Spanish life, 
with all its varied circles. An aristocracy was in each, 
proud and exclusive. A religious world was in each ; a 
world of art and literature, of commerce and adventure. 
Every family had some member pushing his fortunes in 
the army or in the New Hemisphere. The minds of 
men were in full activity. They were enterprising and 
daring. Their manners were polished, and their habits 
splendid ; for into Spain first had poured the fruits of 
the discoveries of Columbus, and the stream of gold was 
continually growing with fresh conquests. Perhaps 
nowhere on the earth was there a finer average of dis- 
tinguished and cultivated society than in the provincial 
Castilian cities, as it is described in Cervantes's novels. 



SAINT TERESA. 181 

The Castilians were a nation of gentlemen, high bred, 
courteous, chivalrous. In arms they had no rivals. In 
art and literature Italy alone was in advance of them, 
and Italy led by no great interval ; while the finest 
characteristics were to be met with equally in every 
part of the country. 

They were a sincere people too ; Catholic in belief, 
and earnestly meaning what they professed. In the 
presence of the Moors, Christianity had retained its 
mediae val features. Of Christianity itself they knew no 
form, and could conceive of none, save that for which 
they had fought against the Moslem ; and the cause of 
the Church was the cause of patriotism. Therefore, 
when the Reformation began in Germany, the Spaniard 
naturally regarded its adherents as the old enemy in 
another dress. An Italian priest could mutter at the 
altar, ' Bread thou art, and bread thou wilt remain/ 
No such monster could have been found in the Spanish 
Peninsula. Leo the Tenth was said to have called 
Christianity a profitable fable. To the subjects of 
Isabella it was a truth, which devils only could deny. 

The Northern nations revolted from the Church in 
the name of liberty. The Spaniards loved liberty, but 
it was the liberty of their country, for which they had 
been fighting for centuries against the Infidel. As 
aristocrats, they were instinctively on the side of 
authority. United among themselves, they believed 
in the union of Christendom ; and they threw them- 
selves into the struggle against heresy with the same 
enthusiasm with which they contended with the 



1 82 SAWT TERESA. 

Crescent in the Mediterranean. They sent their 
chivalry to the Low Countries as if to a crusade. 
Two Spaniards, s Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier, 
created the spiritual army of the Jesuits. While some 
were engaged with the enemy abroad, the finer spirits 
among them undertook the task of setting in order 
their own house at home. They, too, required a Refor- 
mation, if they were to be fit champions of a Holy 
Cause ; and the instrument was a woman, with as few 
natural advantages as Ignatius himself, distinguished 
only in representing, as he did, the vigorous instincts 
of the Spanish character. 

The Church of Rome, it has been said, does not, 
like the Church of England, drive her enthusiasts into 
rebellion, but preserves and wisely employs them. She 
may employ them wisely while they are alive, but 
when they are dead she decks them out in paint and 
tinsel, to be worshipped as divinities. Their history 
becomes a legend. They are surrounded with an 
envelope of lies. Teresa of Avila has fared no better 
than other saints in the calendar. She has been the 
favourite idol of modern Spain, and she deserved more 
modest treatment. 

The idolatry may merit all that Mr. Ford has said 
about it, but the account which he has given of the 
lady herself is so wide of the original, that it is not 
even a caricature. Ford, doubtless, did not like 
Catholic saints, and the absurdities told about them 
disgusted him ; but the materials lay before him for a 
real portrait of Teresa, had he cared to examine them ; 



SATNT TERESA. 1S3 

and it is a pity that he did not, for no one could have 
done better justice to his subject. 

Teresa de Cepeda was born at Avila on March 28, 
15 15 — the time, according to her biographer, 'when 
Luther was secreting the poison which he vomited out 
two years later.' . . . She was one of a large family, 
eleven children in all, eight sons and three daughters. 
Her father, Don Alfonso, was twice married. Teresa's 
mother was the second wife, Beatrice de Ahumada, a 
beautiful, imaginative woman, whom bad health con- 
fined chiefly to a sofa. The Cepedas were of honour- 
able descent ; Don Alfonso was a gentleman of leisure 
and moderate fortune. He spent his time, when not 
engaged with works of charity, in reading Spanish 
literature — chiefly Church history and lives of the 
saints. His library, if the Barber and Curate had sat 
upon it, would have been sifted as ruthlessly as the 
shelves of the Ingenious Knight of La Mancha, for half 
of it was composed of books of Knight Errantry — the 
same volumes probably which those stern Inquisitors 
condemned to the flames. These books were devoured 
as eagerly by the delicate Beatrice as the graver pages 
by her husband, and her example was naturally imitated 
by her children. They sat up at nights in their 
nursery over Rolando and Don Belianis and Amadis of 
Gaul. Teresa composed odes to imaginary cavaliers, 
who figured in adventures of which she was herself the 
heroine. They had to conceal their tastes from their 
father, who would not have approved of them. He was 
a very good man, exceptionally good. He treated his 



i8 4 SAINT TERESA. 

servants as if they were his sons and daughters. He 
was never heard to swear, or to speak ill of any one. 
He was the constant friend of the Avila poor. If too 
indulgent, he had sense and information, and when he 
discerned what was going on, he diverted Teresa's 
tastes in a safer direction. By nature, she says, she was 
the least religious of her family, but her imagination 
was impressible, and she delighted in all forms of 
human heroism. She early forgot her knights, and 
devoted herself to martyrs ; and here, being concrete 
and practical, she thought she would turn her new 
enthusiasm to account. If to be in heaven was to be 
eternally happy, and martyrs went to heaven straight, 
without passing through Purgatory, she concluded that 
she could do nothing more prudent than become a 
martyr herself. When she was seven years old, she 
and her little brother Antonio actually started off tu go 
to the Moors, who they expected would kill them. The 
children had reached the bridge on the stream which 
runs through the town, when an uncle met them and 
brought them back. As they could not be martyrs, 
they thought, as next best, that they would be hermits. 
They gave away their pocket-money to beggars. They 
made themselves cells in the garden. Teresa's ambition 
grew. When other girls came to see her, they played 
at nunneries, when she was perhaps herself the abbess. 
Amidst these fancies her childish years passed away. 
She does not seem to have had much regular teaching. 
Nothing is said about it; and when she grew up she 
had difficulty in reading her Latin Breviary. 



SAINT TERESA. 185 

The Knight Errantry books, however, had left their 
traces. Her mother died while she was still very young, 
and she was much affected. But natural children do 
not long continue miserable. As she passed into girl- 
hood, her glass told her that she was pretty, and she 
was pleased to hear it. She was moderately tall, well 
shaped, with a fine complexion, round brilliant black 
eyes, black hair crisp and curly, good teeth, and firmly 
chiselled lips and nose. So fair a figure deserved that 
pains should be taken with it. She was particular 
about her dress ; she liked perfumes ; her small dainty 
hands were kept scrupulously white. Cousins male 
and female went and came ; and there were small 
flirtations with the boys, and with the girls not very 
wise confidences. One girl cousin there was especially, 
whom the mother, while she lived, would not allow to 
visit at the house, and whom an elder sister would still 
have kept at a distance had she been able. But Teresa 
was wilful, and chose this especial young lady as her 
principal companion. There were also silly servants, 
too ready to encourage folly, and Teresa says that at 
this time nothing but regard for her honour kept her 
clear of serious scrapes. 

Don Alfonso grew uneasy ; the elder sister married 
and went away ; so, feeling unequal himself to the task 
of managing a difficult subject, he sent Teresa to be 
educated in an Augustinian convent in the town. 
Neither her father nor she had any thoughts of her 
adopting a religious life. He never wished it at any 
time. She did not wish it then, and had undefined 



i86 



SAINT TERESA. 



notions of marrying as her sister had done. The con- 
vent to her was merely a school, where there were 
many other girls of her own age, nor did she wholly 
like the life there. She made friends among the elder 
nuns, especially with one, a simple pious woman, who 
slept in the same room with her. But the younger 
sisters were restless. They had acquaintances in the 
town, and were occupied with other things beside 
religious vows. Within the convent itself all was not 
as it should have been. The vicar of the Order had 
the whole spiritual management both of the nuns and 
of their pupils. No one but himself might hear their 
confessions, and the prioress could not interfere with 
him, since by his position he was her superior. Teresa 
does not hint that there was anything positively wrong, 
but when she came to lay down rules in later years for 
the regulation of her own houses, she refers to her 
recollections of what went on in language curiously 
frank : — 

( The confessor in a convent,' she says, ' ought not to be the 
vicar or the visitor. He may take a special interest in some 
sister. The Prioress will be unable to prevent him from talking 
to her, and a thousand mischiefs may follow. . . . The sisters 
should have no intercourse with the confessor except at the 
confessional. . . . The very existence of our institutions depends 
on preventing these Hack devotees from destroying the spouses of 
Christ. The devil enters that way unperceived.' * 



1 ' Va nos todo nuestro Ser, en 
quitar la ocasion para que no haya 
estos negros devo'tos destruidores 
de las esposas de Christo, que es 
men ester pensar siempre en lo peor 



que puede suceder, para quitar esta 
ocasion, que se entra sin sentirlo 
por aqui el demonic' — Cartas de 
la Santa Madre, vol. vi. p. 232. 



SAINT TERESA. 1S7 

The vicar confessor encouraged Teresa in her views 
for marriage, but her fancies and her friendship were 
suddenly broken off by an attack of illness. She 
required change of air ; she was sent on a visit to her 
sister; and on her way home she spent a few days with 
an uncle, a man of secluded and saintly habits, who 
afterwards withdrew into a monastery. The uncle 
advised his niece to take the same step that he was 
himself meditating; and she discussed the question 
with herself in the same spirit with which she had 
designed throwing herself among the Moors. She 
reflected that convent discipline might be painful, but 
it could not be as painful as Purgatory, while if she 
remained in the world she might come to something 
worse than Purgatory. She read St. Jerome's Epistles ; 
she then consulted her father, and was distressed to 
meet with strong objections. Don Alfonso was attached 
to his children, and Teresa was his especial favourite. 
The utmost that she could obtain was a permission to 
do as she pleased after his own death. But 'a vocation' 
was held to dispense with duties to parents. She made 
up her own mind, and, like Luther, she decided to act 
for herself, and to take a step which, when once 
accomplished, could not be recalled. One morning 
she left her home with her brother, and applied 
for admission at the Carmelite Convent of the In- 
carnation. She was then eighteen. She had been 
disappointed with the Augustinians ; but the Car- 
melites had a reputation for superior holiness, and 
she threw herself among them with the passionate 



1 88 SAINT TERESA. 

enthusiasm of an ardent girl, who believed that she 
was securing her peace in this world, and happiness in 
the next. Again she was to be undeceived. The Order 
of Mount Carrael had been founded by Albert, Patriarch 
of Jerusalem, in the second Crusade. The rule had 
been austere — austere as the rule of the Carthusians — 
with strict seclusion, silence, solitude, the plainest dress, 
the most ascetic diet. But by the beginning of the 
sixteenth century time and custom had relaxed the 
primitive severity, and Carmelite convents had become 
a part of general society ; the nuns within the cloisters 
living and occupying themselves in a manner not very 
different from their friends outside, with whom they 
were in constant communication. Austerity was still 
possible, but it was not insisted on, and was a sign of 
presumption and singularity. In the ' Incarnation ' 
there were a hundred and ninety sisters, and the dis- 
cipline among them was scarcely more than a name. 
They went in and out as they pleased ; they received 
visits and returned them; they could be absent from 
the cloister for months at a time. Catholics accuse 
Protestants of having libelled the monastic life of 
Europe as it existed before the Reformation. Luther 
himself has said nothing harsher of it than the saint 
of Avila. She followed the stream, she said ; she 
abandoned herself to vanity and amusement, and 
neither custom nor the authority of her superiors laid 
the slightest check upon her. She had as- much liberty 
as she liked to ask for, and liberty in a convent meant 
free opportunities of evil. She does not assert that 



SAINT TERESA. 189 

there was gross licentiousness ; but she does assert that 
to ' ill-disposed women ' convent life ' was rather a road 
to hell than an aid to weakness ' ; and that ' parents 
w T ould do better to marry their daughters honestly than 
to place them in relaxed houses of religion ' : — 

' The girls themselves,' she says, c are not so much to blame, 
for they do no worse than they see others do. They enter eon- 
vents to serve the Lord and escape the dangers of the world, and 
they are flung into ten worlds all together, with youth, sensuality, 
and the devil, tempting them to evil. ... In the same house are 
two roads, one leading to virtue and piety, another leading away 
from virtue and piety ; and the road of religion is so little 
travelled, that a sister who wishes to follow it has more to fear 
from her companions than from all the devils. She finds it easier 
far to make intimacies with the devil's instruments than to seek 
friendship with God.' 

How dangerous this lax temper might have been to 
herself Teresa tells us in an instructive incident. Her 
health was never strong, and the convent had disagreed 
with her. She was sick every morning, and could touch 
no food till noon. She often fainted, and there were 
symptoms of heart disorder. Nor was she happy in 
herself. She had tried to be good, and had only made 
enemies by her efforts. She found herself rebuked for 
small offences of which she was wholly innocent. She 
lived much alone, and the sisters thought she was dis- 
contented. Her father became alarmed for her, and 
again sent her away into the country, with a single 
nun for a companion. At the place where she went to 
reside there was an attractive priest, a man of intellect 
and culture. Teresa was fond of cultivated men. She 
took the priest for her confessor, and found him more 



igo SAINT TERESA. 

and more agreeable. He flattered her conscience by 
telling her that she could never wish to do wrong. 
He said it was his own case also, and they became 
extremely intimate. She was informed after a time 
that this charmingly innocent person had been living 
for some years with a female companion, while he 
continued to say mass as if nothing were the matter. 
She was at first incredulous. She made inquiries, but 
the scandal was notorious. Every one was aware of it, 
but the offender had influence, and it was unsafe to 
interfere with him. Even so, however, Teresa would 
not abandon her friend, and looked for excuses for him. 
The woman, she found, had given him an amulet, and 
while he wore it he was under a spell. He told her 
this himself, and her interest was now increased by pity 
and anxiety. She admits that she was unwise, that 
she ought at once to have ended the acquaintance. 
She preferred to endeavour to save a perishing soul. 
She was but twenty; she was very beautiful; she 
spoke to the attractive sinner of God ; and of course to 
a lesson from such lips he was delighted to listen. She 
perceived the cause, but was not discouraged. She 
pressed him to give her the amulet, and equally of 
course he consented. She threw it into the river, and 
he at once broke off his guilty connection, and devoted 
himself to spiritual communion with herself. She 
flattered herself that he was penitent, though it was 
equally clear that he was in love with her; and he 
abandoned himself to his affection with the less reserve, 
because she says he had confidence in her virtue, and 



SATNT TERESA. 191 

supposed that he could do so without danger. The 
danger was as great as it usually is under such cir- 
cumstances. They had ' opportunities of sin/ she said, 
and though she believed that they would not have 
fallen mortally, she admits that they might have gone 
seriously wrong if they had not kept God before their 
eyes. The priest died a year after, and, as Teresa 
observes naively, was delivered from further temptation. 
She long retained some tenderness for him ; twenty 
years later, when she wrote the story, she expressed a 
conviction that he was saved : but the experience must 
have helped her to the opinion, which she afterwards so 
strongly insisted on, that confessors were the most unsafe 
of friends. 

After this adventure, which she relates with perfect 
simplicity, she returned to the convent. Her health 
was not improved. She was still constantly sick ; she 
had paroxysms of pain ; her nervous system was 
shattered, and the physicians were afraid of madness. 
In this state she remained for three years. At the end 
of them it occurred to her to pray for help to San Josef. 
From some cause she became comparatively better ; 
and to San Josef she supposed that she owed her re- 
covery. 'God/ she says, 'has allowed other saints to 
help us on some occasions; my experience of this 
glorious saint is that he helps us in all : as if the Lord 
would teach us that, as he was subject to San Josef on 
earth, and San Josef was called his father though only 
his guardian, so San Josef, though in heaven, has still 
authority with him.' 



192 SAINT TERESA. 

The illness had become less acute ; but, as the pain 
of body grew less, Teresa became conscious of spiritual 
maladies that were left uncured. ' She loved God with 
half her mind, but she loved the world with the other/ 
Her prayers troubled her, she says, for she could not fix 
her mind on them. Meditation was yet more difficult. 
' She had a slow intellect and a torpid imagination.' 
She required a book to help her, for the right reflections 
and emotions would not occur to herself; other thoughts 
persisted in intruding themselves ; and at length, being, 
as she was, a veracious woman, she abandoned prayer 
altogether. Among all her faults, she says she was 
never a hypocrite, and prayer when it was no more 
than a form of words seemed an indecent mockery. 

Her confessor, when she explained her troubles, 
only thought her morbid. In the convent she was 
regarded as exceptionally strict, and wide as was the 
general liberty, with her every rule was dispensed with. 
She spent her time in the society of Avila with more 
enjoyment than she was herself aware of, and when a 
pious old nun told her that she was causing scandal, she 
would not understand it, and was only angry. 

1 Unless God had brought me to the truth,' she says, ' I should 
most assuredly have gone at last to hell. I had many friends to 
help me to fall, while, as to rising again, I was utterly alone. My 
confessor did nothing for me. For twenty years I was tossed 
about on a stormy sea in a wretched condition, for if I had small 
content in the world, in God I had no pleasure. There were 
months, once there was an entire year, when I was careful not to 
offend ; but of all those years, eighteen were years of battle. At 
prayer time I watched for the clock to strike the end of the hour. 



SAINT TERESA. 193 

To go to the oratory was a vexation to me, and prayer itself a 
constant effort.' 

Such was Teresa's conventual experience, as de- 
scribed by herself. She began her noviciate in 1534. 
The twenty years, therefore, extended to 1554, the year 
in which Philip went to England to be married to our 
Queen Mary. She was then nearly forty, and her 
efforts so far in the direction of religion had consisted 
rather iu helping others (which she says she was always 
eager to do) than in framing any steady resolutions for 
herself. Her conversion, as it is called, her first attempt 
to think with real seriousness, was occasioned by the 
death of her father. She had watched by him in his 
last illness. She saw his spirit take flight, and heard 
the assurance of his Dominican confessor that it had 
gone straight to heaven. She had been deeply attached 
to him. She woke up out of her irresolutions, and 
determined to use the rest of her life to better purpose 
than the beginning. 

She was not a person to do anything by halves. She 
thought of Mary Magdalene. She read the * Confessions ' 
of St. Augustine, and saw an image there of her own 
state of mind. One day, as she was entering the 
oratory, she was struck by the sight of an image which 
had been brought thither for an ajjproaching festival. 
It was a wounded Christ, the statue coloured with the 
painful realism which suited the Spanish taste, the 
blood streaming over the face from the thorns, and 
running from the side and the hands and feet. Pro- 
testants and Catholics experience an identical emotion 



194 SAINT TERESA. 

when the meaning of Christianity is brought home to 
them. Each poor sinner recognizes, as by a flash of 
lightning that these tortures were endured for him or 
her — that he or she was actually present in the Saviour's 
mind when he was suffering on the cross. The thought 
when it comes is overpowering. Teresa felt as if her 
heart was wrenched in two. She fell in tears at the 
feet of the figure. She did not seek for sentimental 
emotions. She surrendered herself wholly and for ever 
to the Being wdiose form was fastened on her soul, and 
from that moment every worldly feeling was gone, 
never to return. Her spiritual life had begun. She 
explains the condition in which she found herself by an 
image familiar to every one who has seen the environs 
of a Spanish village. She apologises for its simplicity, 
but it is as true and pregnant as a Gospel parable. 

{ A man is directed to make a garden in a bad soil overrun 
with sour grasses. The lord of the land roots out the weeds, sows 
seeds, and plants herbs and fruit trees. The gardener must then 
care for them and water them, that they may thrive and blossom, 
and that "the Lord" may find pleasure in his garden and come 
to visit it. There are four ways in which the watering may be 
done. There is water which is drawn wearily by hand from the 
well. There is water drawn by the ox-wheel, more abundantly 
and with lighter labour. There is water brought in from the 
river, which will saturate the whole ground ; and, last and best, 
there is rain from heaven. Four sorts of prayer correspond to 
these. The first is a weary effort with small returns ; the well 
may run dry; the gardener then must weep. The second is 
internal prayer and meditation upon God ; the trees will then 
show leaves and flower-buds. The third is love of God. The 
virtues then become vigorous. We converse with God face to 
face. The flowers open and give out fragrance. The fourth kind 
cannot be described in words. Then there is no more toil, and 



SAINT TERESA. 195 

the seasons no longer change ; flowers are always blowing, and 
fruit ripens perennially. The soul enjoys undoubting certitude ; 
the faculties work without effort and without consciousness ; the 
heart loves and does not know that it loves ; the mind perceives 
yet does not know that it perceives. If the butterfly pauses to 
say to itself how prettily it is flying, the shining wings fall off, 
and it drops and dies. The life of the spirit is not our life, but 
the life of God within us.' 

This is very beautiful. It is the same, in fact, as 
what Bishop Butler says, in less ornamented prose, of 
the formation of moral habits. We first learn to do 
right with effort. The habit grows till it pervades the 
nature, and afterwards we act as we ought spontaneously, 
with no more consciousness than animals have, which 
do what they do by instinct. 

But we are now on the edge of the abnormal features 
of Teresa's history, and before I enter on the subject I 
must explain briefly how I myself regard the aberrations 
which will have to be related. All physicians, all 
psychologists of reputation, agree that besides sleeping 
and waking there are other conditions — trances, ecstasies, 
catalepsies, and such like — into which the body is liable 
to fall; and, as in sleep images present themselves 
more vivid than can be called up by waking memory or 
waking fancy, so in these exceptional states of the 
system peculiar phenomena appear, which are none the 
less real because fools or impostors have built extrava- 
gant theories upon them. The muscles sometimes 
become rigid, the senses become unnaturally susceptible. 
The dreaming power is extraordinarily intensified, and 
visions are seen (we say ' seen ' for want of a more 



196 SAINT TERESA. 

scientific expression) palpable as sense itself. Such 
conditions are usually brought about by ordinary causes. 
Perhaps they may be created artificially. They are not 
supernatural, for they have an exact analogy in the 
universal experience of sleep. They are considered 
supernatural only because they are exceptional, and the 
objects perceived are always supplied out of the stores 
with which memory is furnished. Teresa's health was 
peculiar. For twenty years she had been liable to 
violent nervous attacks — those, too, an imperfectly 
understood form of disorder. She was full-blooded, 
constantly sick, constantly subject to fainting fits and 
weakness of the heart. Her intellect and moral sense, 
on the other hand, were remarkably strong. She was 
not given to idle imaginations. She was true and 
simple, was never known to tell a lie or act one. But 
her mental constitution was unusual. Objects that in- 
terested her, she says, never ran into words, but fastened 
themselves as pictures upon her brain. Meadows, trees, 
and rivers, effects of sky. all materials of landscape 
beauty, gave her intense emotions, but emotions which 
she was unable to describe. She was a painter, but 
without the faculty of conveying her impressions to 
canvas. She perceived with extreme vividness, but the 
perception ended in itself. If she wanted phrases she 
had to look for them in books, and what she found in 
books did not satisfy her because it did not correspond 
to her own experience. 

This was her general temperament, on which 
powerful religious emotion was now to work. The 



SAINT TERESA. i 97 

figure of Christ had first awakened her. The shock 
threw her into a trance. The trances repeated them- 
selves whenever .she was unusually agitated. Such a 
person would inevitably see ' visions/ which she would 
be unable to distinguish from reality ; and if she 
believed herself subject to demoniac or angelic visita- 
tions, she was not on that account either weak or 
dishonest. 

In the life of every one who has really tried to make 
a worthy use of existence, there is always a point — a 
point never ' afterwards forgotten — when the road has 
ceased to be downhill, and the climb upward has com- 
menced. There has been some accident perhaps ; or 
some one has died, or one has been disappointed in 
something on which the heart had been fixed, or some 
earnest words have arrested attention; at any rate, 
some seed has fallen into a soil prepared to receive it. 
This is called in religious language conversion ; the 
turning away from sin and folly to duty and righteous- 
ness. Beginnings are always hard. Persons who have 
hitherto acted in one particular way, and suddenly 
change to another way, arc naturally suspected of 
having unworthy personal motives. They have lived 
so far for themselves. They cannot be credited at once 
with having ceased to live for themselves. They must 
still be selfish. They must have some indirect object 
in view. 

Teresa in her convent had resolved to be thence- 
forward a good woman, and to use to better purpose the 
means which the Church offered to her. She found at 



198 SAINT TERESA. 

once that she was misunderstood and disliked. She 
wished to be peculiar, it was said ; she wished to be 
thought a saint ; she was setting herself up to be better 
than other people. Her trances and fits of unconscious- 
ness were attributed to the most obvious cause. She 
was said to be ' possessed ' by a devil. She had been 
humbled in her own eyes ; and she herself thought that 
perhaps it was a devil. She could not tell, and her 
spiritual adviser could not tell any better. The Jesuits 
were then rising into fame. Francisco Borgia, ex-Duke 
of Gandia, had joined them, and had been made Pro- 
vincial General for Spain. He came to Avila, heard of 
Teresa, and took charge of her case. He put her under 
a course of discipline. He told her to flog herself with 
a whip of nettles, to wear a hair-cloth plaited with 
broken wires, the points of which would tear her skin. 
Had her understanding been less robust, he would have 
driven her mad; as it was, he only intensified her 
nervous agitation. He bade her meditate daily on the 
details of Christ's Passion. One day, while thus occu- 
pied, she became unconscious; her limbs stiffened, and 
she heard a voice say, ' Thou shalt no more converse 
with men, but with angels.' After this the fits always 
returned when she was at prayers. She saw no distinct 
form, but she felt that Christ was close to her. She 
told her confessor what she had experienced. He asked 
how she knew that it was Christ. She could not 
explain. A few days after, she was able to tell him 
that she had actually seen Christ. She had seen him, 
she said (without being aware that she was explaining 



SAINT TERESA. 199 

from whence the figure had been derived), exactly as 
he was painted rising from the sepulchre. The story 
went abroad. The ill-natured sisters made spiteful 
remarks; the wisest shook their heads. Teresa had 
not been noted for special holiness in the many years 
that she had been among them. Others, much more 
like saints than she, had never seen anything wonder- 
ful ; why should God select her to visit with such 
special favour ? They were more clear than ever that 
she was possessed. She was preached at from the 
pulpit ; she was prayed for in chapel as bewitched. 
She could not tell how to behave : if she was silent 
about her visions, it was deceit ; if she spoke of them, 
it was vanity. She preserved her balance in this 
strange trial remarkably well. Her confessor had been 
warned against her, and was as hard as the rest. She 
continued to tell him whatever she supposed herself to 
see and hear, and absolutely submitted to his judgment. 
He confidently assured her it was the devil, and directed 
her when Christ appeared next to make the sign of the 
cross and point her thumb at him. God would then 
deliver her. She obeyed, though with infinite pain. 
Christ's figure, whoever made it, ought, she thought, to 
be reverenced ; and to point her thumb was to mock 
like the Jews. As her trances recurred always at 
her devotions, she was next forbidden to pray. Under 
these trials Christ himself interposed to comfort her. 
He told her that she was right in obeying her confessor, 
though the confessor was mistaken. The inhibition to 
pray, he said, was tyranny, and, in fact, it was not long 



200 SAINT TERESA. 

maintained. The apparitions grew more frequent and 
more vivid. One day the cross attached to her rosary 
was snatched out of her hands, and when it was given 
back to her it was set with jewels more brilliant than 
diamonds. A voice said that she would always see it 
so, though to others it would seem as before. She had 
often an acute pain in her side ; she fancied once that 
an angel came to her with a lance tipped with fire, 
which he struck into her heart. In after years, when 
she became legendary, it was gravely declared that 
the heart had been examined, and had been found 
actually pierced. A large drawing of it forms the 
frontispiece of the biography provided for the use of 
pious Catholics. 

This condition continued for several years, and 
became the talk of Avila. Some held to the possession 
theory; others said it was imposture; others, especially 
as there was no further harm in poor Teresa, began to 
fancy that perhaps the visions were real. She herself 
knew not what to think. Excellent people were 
satisfied that she was under a delusion, and the excel- 
lent people, she thought, might very likely be right, for 
the apparitions were not all of a consoling kind. She 
had seen Christ and the angels, but also she had seen 
the devil. ' Once,' she says, ' the devil appeared to me 
in the oratory ; he spoke to me ; his face was awful, and 
his body was of flame without smoke. He said that I 
had escaped him for the present, but- he would have 
me yet. I made the sign of the cross ; he went, but 
returned ; I threw holy water at him, and then he 



SAINT TERESA. 201 

vanished/ At another time she was taken into hell; 
the entrance was by a gloomy passage, at the end of 
which was a pool of putrid water alive with writhing 
snakes. She fancied that she was thrust into a hole in 
a wall where she could neither sit nor lie, and in that 
position was tortured with cramps. Other horrors she 
witnessed, but did not herself experience: she was 
shown only what would have been her own condition if 
she had not been rescued. 

One act she records, exceedingly characteristic. 
Avila was not wholly unbelieving. Afflicted persons 
sometimes came to her for advice. Among the rest a 
priest came, who was living in mortal sin, miserable, 
yet unable to confess in the proper form, and so made 
fast in the bonds of Satan. Teresa prayed for him; 
and then he managed to confess, and for a time did 
not sin any more ; but he told Teresa that the devil 
tortured him dreadfully, and he could not bear it. She 
then prayed that the tortures might be laid on her, and 
that the priest might be spared. For a month after 
the devil was allowed to work his will upon her. He 
would sit upon her breviary when she was reading, and 
her cell would fill with legions of imps. 

An understanding of less than unusual strength 
would have broken down under so severe a trial. 
Teresa knew nothing of the natural capacities of a 
disordered animal system. She had been taught 
theologically that angels and devils were everywhere 
busy, and it was inevitable that she should regard 
herself as under a preternatural dispensation of some 



202 SAINT TERESA. 

kind ; but, as long as she was uncertain of what kind, 
she kept her judgment undisturbed, and she thought 
and reasoned on the common subjects of the day like a 
superior person of ordinary faculty. 

Society at Avila, as throughout Spain, was stormily 
agitated at the advance of the Reformation. From 
Germany it was passing to the Low Countries and into 
France. England, after a short-lived recovery, had 
relapsed into heresy, and dreadful stories were told of 
religious houses suppressed, and monks and nuns 
breaking their vows and defying heaven by marrying. 
Antichrist was triumphing, and millions of souls were 
rushing headlong into the pit. Other millions too of 
ignorant Indians, missionaries told her, were perishing 
also for want of vigour in the Church to save them. 
Teresa, since she had seen hell, had a very real horror 
of it. Torment without end ! What heart could bear 
the thought of it ? To rescue any single soul from so 
terrible a fate, she felt ready herself to die a thousand 
deaths ; but what could one poor woman do at such a 
time — a single unit in a Spanish country town ? 
Something was wrong when such catastrophes could 
happen. What the wrong was, she thought she saw 
within the limits of her own experience. The religious 
orders were the Church's regular soldiers. Their 
manual was their rule ; their weapons were penance, 
prayer, and self-denial ; and as long as they were dili- 
gent in the use of them, God's favour was secured, and 
evil could not prevail. But the rules had been neg- 
lected, penance laughed at, and prayer become half- 



SAINT TERESA. 203 

hearted. Cloister discipline had been accommodated to 
the manners of a more enlightened age. 

' Hoc fonte derivata cladea 
In patriam populumqiie fluxit.' 

Here was the secret of the great revolt from the 
Church, in the opinion of Teresa, and it was at least 
part of the truth; for the cynical profligacy of the 
religious houses had provoked Germany and England 
more than any other cause. Teresa herself had learnt 
how little convent life in Spain could assist a soul in 
search of perfection. At the Incarnation she could not 
keep her vows if she wished to keep them; for the 
cloister gates were open, and the most earnest desire 
for seclusion could not ensure it. Friends who wanted 
a nun to visit them had only to apply to the provincial, 
and the provincial would give a dispensation, not as 
a permission, but as a mandate which was not to be 
disobeyed. 

Puzzled with what she found, Teresa had studied 
the ancient rule of the Carmelite Order before it was 
relaxed by Eugenius the Fourth. If a house could be 
founded where that rule could be again kept, she con- 
sidered, how much easier her own burden would be ; how 
much better God would be served ; and then, perhaps, 
the Church would regain her strength. No improve- 
ment could be looked for in the Convent of the Incar- 
nation itself. Two hundred women, accustomed to 
indulgences which a Pope had sanctioned, were not 
likely to be induced to submit again to severities. She 



204 SAINT TERESA. 

talked of her scheme with her friends in the town. 
The difficulties seemed enormous; she had no money 
to begin with, and her friends had little. If this 
obstacle could be overcome, she had another and a 
worse before her ; she could do nothing without the 
consent of the provincial, and for such a consent she 
knew that it would be idle to ask. She was thinking 
the matter over one day after communion, when she 
fell into her usual trance. 'The Lord' appeared and 
told her that her design was to be carried out. A 
house was to be founded, and was to be dedicated to 
her old patron San Josef. It would become a star 
which would shine over the earth. She was to tell her 
confessor what he had said, and to require him to make 
no opposition. 

The apparition was a natural creation of her own 
previous musings, but it fell in so completely with her 
wishes that she would not and could not doubt. It 
appeared again and again. She wrote an account of it 
by her confessor's orders, and it was submitted to the 
provincial and the bishop. If they hesitated, it was 
but for a moment; they naturally consulted Teresa's 
prioress, and at once the tempest was let loose. ' This 
then,' exclaimed the incensed mother and the rest of 
the sisterhood, ' this is the meaning of the visions we 
have heard so much of. Sister Teresa thinks herself 
too good for us. We are not holy enough for her. 
Pretty presumption ! Let her keep the rule as it 
stands before she talks of mending it.' From the 
convent the disturbance passed to the town. The 



SAINT TERESA. 205 

Spaniards had no love for novelties; they believed in 
use, and wont, and the quiet maintenance of established 
things. They looked on ecstasies and trances as signs 
rather of insanity than sanctity ; they thought that 
people should do their duty in the state of life to which 
they had been called, and duty was hard enough with- 
out artificial additions. Teresa's relations told the 
provincial she was out of her mind. Some thought 
a prison would be the best place for her : others hinted 
at the Inquisition and a possible trial for witchcraft. 
Her confessor called her scheme a woman's nonsense, 
and insisted that she should think no more of it. 

She went for refuge to her master. The Lord told 
her that she was not to be disturbed ; good things were 
always opposed when first suggested; she must wait 
quietly, and all would go well. Though Avila seemed 
unanimous in its condemnation, there were two priests 
there of some consequence — one a Dominican, the other 
a Franciscan — who were more on a level with the times. 
They saw that something might be made of Teresa, and 
they wrote to their friends in Rome about her. Her 
Jesuit confessor held to his own opinion, but a new 
rector came to the college at Avila, with whom they 
also communicated. The rector, after a conversation 
with her, removed the confessor and appointed another. 
The provincial remained obstinate, but the bishop, 
Alvarez de Mendoza, was privately encouraging. Teresa 
was made to feel that she was not deserted, and, with a 
new spiritual director to comfort her, she took up her 
project again. 



206 SAINT TERESA. 

She was in a difficulty, for she was bound by her 
vows to obey the provincial ; he had already refused 
his permission, and she dared not apply to him again. 
But she probably knew that an appeal had been made 
to the Pope, and, pending the results of this, she thought 
that she might begin her preparations. She had to be 
secret— almost deceitful; and might have doubted if 
she was keeping within even the letter of her duty if 
her visions had been less inspiriting. A widow friend 
in the town bought a house as if for her own private 
occupation. Alterations were wanted to make it suit- 
able for a small convent, and Teresa had no money to 
pay for them ; but San Josef told her to engage work- 
men, and that the money should be found ; and in fact 
at that moment a remittance came unexpectedly from 
a brother in Lima. She was afraid of the Carmelite 
authorities. The house, Christ told her, should be 
under the bishop, and not under the Order; she was 
herself to be the superior, and she saw herself robed 
for office by San Josef and the Virgin in person. 

Careful as she was, she still feared that the pro- 
vincial would hear what she was doing, and would 
send her an inhibition, to which, if it came, she had 
resolved to submit. It became expedient for her to 
leave Avila till the answer from Rome could arrive. 
At that moment, most conveniently, Doiia Alo\^sia de 
la Cerda, sister of the Duke of Medina Celi, wrote to 
the provincial to say that she wished Teresa to pay her 
a visit at her house at Toledo. Dona Aloysia was a 
great lady, whose requests were commands. The order 



SAINT TERESA. ion 

came to her to go, and she was informed by the usual 
channel that the invitation had been divinely arranged. 
She was absent for six months, and became acquainted 
with the nature and habits of Spanish grandees. Dona 
Aloysia treated her with high distinction ; she met 
other great people, and was impressed with their breed- 
ing and manners. But the splendour was disagreeable. 
She observed shrewdly, that between persons of rank 
and their attendants there was a distance which forbad 
familiarity ; if one servant was treated with confidence, 
the others were jealous; she was herse]f an object of 
ill-will through Dona Aloysia's friendship; and she 
concluded that it was a popular error to speak of ' Lords 
and Ladies ' ; for the high friends whom she had made 
were slaves in a thousand ways. Her chief comfort at 
Toledo was the Jesuit College, where she studied at 
leisure the details of monastic rule. Her visit was 
unexpectedly ended by a letter from her provincial. 
The feeling in the Incarnation convent had suddenly 
changed ; a party had formed in her favour, who wished 
to choose her as prioress. The provincial, who disliked 
her as much as ever, desired Dona Aloysia privately to 
prevent her from going home; but 'a vision' told her 
that she had prayed for a cross, and a cross she should 
have. She concluded that it was to be the threatened 
promotion, and after a stormy scene with her hostess 
she went her way. 

She was mistaken about the cross. On reaching 
Avila, she found that she had not been elected, but 
that the bull had arrived privately from Rome for her 



208 SAINT TERESA. 

new convent. The Pope had placed it under the 
bishop, as c the Lord ' had foretold, and the bishop had 
undertaken the charge. The secret had been profoundly 
kept ; the house was ready, and nothing remained but 
to take possession of it. It was to be a house of 
' Descalzos ' (Barefoots), the name by which the reformed 
Order was in future to be known in opposition to the 
Relaxed, the Calzados. The sisters were not to be 
literally ' shoeless ' ; ' a barefoot,' as Teresa said, ' makes 
a bad beast of burden.' They were to wear sandals of 
rope, and, for the rest, they were to be confined to the 
cloister strictly, to eat no meat, to sleep on straw, to 
fast on reduced allowance from September till Easter; 
they were to do needlework for the benefit of the poor, 
and they were to live on alms without regular endow- 
ment. Teresa had been careful for their health; the 
hardships would not be greater than those borne with- 
out complaint by ordinary Spanish peasants. The dress 
was to be of thick undyed woollen cloth, with no orna- 
ment but cleanliness. Dirt, which most saints regarded 
as a sign of holiness, Teresa always hated. The number 
of sisters was to be thirteen ; more, she thought, could 
not live together consistently with discipline. 

Notwithstanding the Pope's bull, difficulty was an- 
ticipated. If the purpose was known, the Carmelites 
would find means of preventing the dreaded innovation ; 
an accomplished fact, however, would probably be 
allowed to stand. Teresa selected four poor women 
as the first to take the habit, and quietly introduced 
them into the house. She had gone out on leave from 



SATNT TERESA. 209 

her own cloister, as if to attend a sick relative, and was 
thus unobserved. On August 24, 1562, ten years exactly 
before the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the sacrament 
was brought into the tiny chapel of San Josefs, a bell 
was hung, mass was said, and the new Order had begun 
to exist. 

Teresa was still bound by her vows to her convent. 
When the ceremony was over, she returned to the 
Incarnation, half frightened at what she had done. 
She had stirred a hornets' nest, as she was immediately 
to find. The devil attacked her first ; he told her that 
she had broken obedience, she had. acted without the 
provincial's leave, and had not asked for it because she 
knew it would be refused; her nuns would starve; she 
herself would soon tire of a wretched life in such a 
wretched place, and would pine for her lost comforts. 
She lay down to rest, but was soon roused by a storm. 
The townspeople were the first to discover what had 
happened. Tt was easy to foresee the anger of the 
Carmelites; why the townspeople should have been 
angry is less obvious. Perhaps they objected to the 
establishment of a colony of professed beggars among 
them; perhaps they were led by the chiefs of the other 
religious Orders. A riot broke out; the prioress sent 
for Teresa; the provincial arrived, hot and indignant. 
She was rebuked, admonished, informed that she had 
given scandal, and required to make instant submission 
before the assembled convent. The Alcalde meanwhile 
had called a meeting of the citizens, where the pro- 
vincials of the Dominicans, Franciscans, and Augus- 



2io SAINT TERESA. 

tinians attended. A resolution was first passed for the 
instant dissolution of the new house and the removal 
of the sacrament; on second thoughts, it was decided 
to refer the matter, being of such high importance, to 
the Council of State at Madrid. Teresa had but one 
friend to go to. 'My Lord/ she said, on her knees, 
• this house is not mine, it is yours ; all that I could 
do is done. You must see to it.' She was not to be 
disappointed. 

The bishop prevented immediate violence, and Avila 
waited for the action of the Council. The Council was 
in no hurry with an answer. Certain persons wrote to 
Philip ; Philip referred to the Pope, and there were 
six months of suspense, the four poor sisters living as 
they could, and Teresa remaining in disgrace. The 
town authorities cooled ; they said the house might 
stand if any one would endow it. Afterwards, finding 
that they were not likely to be supported from Madrid, 
they were ready to dispense with endowment. On the 
arrival of a fresh bull from Pius the Fifth all remains 
of opposition vanished, except among the Carmelites, 
and the Carmelites found it prudent to suppress their 
objections. Public opinion veered round; the found- 
ation was declared to be a work of God, and Teresa to 
be His special servant, instead of a restless visionary. 
The provincial gave her leave to remove and take 
charge of her flock. The luggage which she took with 
her from the Incarnation was a straw mattress, a 
patched woollen gown, a whip, and a hair-cloth shirt ; 
that was all. 



SAINT TERESA. 211 

Thus furnished, she entered on the five happiest 
years of her life. Other sisters joined, bringing 
small dowries with them, and the number of thirteen 
was soon filled up. Her girls, she says, were angels, 
perfect especially in the virtue of obedience. She 
would try them by orders contradictory or absurd ; they 
did their best without a question. One sister was told 
to plant a rotten cucumber in the garden ; she merely 
asked if it was to be planted upright or lengthways. 

The visions were without intermission. She was 
taken up to heaven and saw her father and mother 
there. The Virgin gave her a cope, invisible to all 
eyes but her own, which would protect her from mortal 
sin. Once at ' hours ' she had a very curious experience. 
She fancied that she was a mirror without frame, with- 
out dimensions, with Christ shining in the centre of it, 
and the mirror itself, she knew not how, w r as in Christ. 
He told her that when a soul was in mortal sin the 
glass was clouded, and though he was present, it could 
not reflect him. With heretics the glass was broken, 
and could never be repaired. 

Heretics and the growth of them still occupied her, 
and the more keenly as the civil war grew more en- 
venomed in France. They were too strong, she thought, 
to be overcome by princes and soldiers. In such a 
contest the spiritual arm only could prevail. In a 
trance she saw seven Carmelite monks, of the pristine 
type, reformed like her own sisterhood, with swords in 
their hands on a battle-field. Their faces were flushed 
with fighting. The ground was strewn with the slain, 



212 SAINT TERESA. 

and they were smiting still, and the flying enemy were 
the hosts of Luther and Calvin. These air-drawn 
pictures, lately called illusions of Satan, were now 
regarded as communications direct from heaven. They 
were too important to be lost. Her superior ordered 
her to write them down, and the result was the singular 
autobiography which has hitherto been our guide to 
her history. 

She wrote it unwillingly; for it is evident that, 
deeply as these communications had affected her, and 
definitely^s her spiritual advisers had at length assured 
her of their supernatural origin, she was herself still 
uncertain of their nature. Many of her visions, she 
was confident, had been the creation of her own brain. 
If any had come from another source, she did not regard 
them as of particular importance, or as symptoms of a 
high state of grace. This is certain, from a passage on 
the subject in one of her writings. Hysterical nuns 
often fancied that they had received revelations, and 
their confessors were too apt to encourage them. She 
says : — 

' Of " revelations " no account should be made ; for though 
some may be authentic, many are certainly false, and it is foolish 
to look for one truth amidst a hundred lies. It is dangerous 
also, for " revelations " are apt to stray from the right faith, and 
the right faith is of immeasurably greater consequence. People 
fancy that to have "revelations" implies exceptional holiness. 
It implies nothing of the kind. Holiness can be arrived at only 
by acts of virtue and by keeping the commandments. We women 
are easily led away by our imagination ; we have less strength 
and less knowledge than men have, and cannot keep things in 
their proper places. Therefore I will not have my sisters read 



SAINT TERESA. 213 

my own books, especially not my autobiography, lest they look 
for revelations for themselves in fancying that they are imitating 
me. The best things that I know came to me by obedience, not 
by revelation. Sisters may have real visions, but they must be 
taught to make light of them. There is a subtle deceit in these 
experiences. The devil may lead souls to evil on a spiritual road.' 

The priest editor of Teresa's works makes an honest 
observation on this remarkable acknowledgment. ' I 
know not how it is/ he says, 'but the revelations 
received by women seem of consequence to men, and 
those received by men of consequence to women.' 
Though he pretends that he did not know how it 
was, he knew very well, for he goes on : ' It must 
arise from those accursed sexual inclinations — each 
sex believes most where it loves most.' He should 
have drawn one more inference — that young men 
were the worst possible spiritual advisers for young 
women. 

Teresa was not to be left to enjoy her quiet. A 
single convent had hitherto sufficed for her ambition; 
but she had been told that it was to be a star which 
was to shine over the earth, and at that solitary taper 
other flames were now to be kindled. The Church of 
Rome was rallying from its confusion, and was setting 
its house in order. The clergy were clearing themselves 
of the scandals which had brought such tremendous 
consequences on them. The Catholic powers were 
putting out their strength, and Teresa's energetic spirit 
would not allow her to rest. The Carmelites them- 
selves now partially recognised her value. The General 
came to Spain, and visited her at Avila. He reported 



214 SAINT TERESA. 

what he had seen to Philip, and, with Philip's sanction, 
he sent her powers to found other houses of Descalzos, 
forbidding the provincials to interfere with her. The 
champions whom she had seen on the battle-field in 
a vision had been brothers of her reformed Order. The 
General empowered her to establish institutions of men 
as well as women, if she could find recruits who were 
willing. In other respects she was left to herself, 
and she was to show what a single woman, with no 
resources but her own internal force, was able to 
accomplish. She was now fifty-two, with bad health, 
which was growing worse by age. The leaders of the 
Church were awake ; princes and statesmen were 
awake; but the body of the Spanish people was still 
unstirred. She had to contend with official pedantry, 
with the narrow pride of bishops, with dislike of 
change, and the jealousies of rival jurisdictions. As to 
barefoot monks, it was long before she could find a 
single man in flesh and blood whom she could tempt to 
join with her. 

Her adventures in the fifteen years of her pilgrimage 
would fill a long volume. We must content ourselves 
with fragmentary incidents of her wanderings, a few 
pictures of persons with whom she came in contact, a 
few glimpses of Peninsular life in the sixteenth century, 
and the human features of a remarkable person still 
traceable behind the paint and tinsel of miracle, with 
which her biographers have disfigured Teresa de 
Cepeda. 

Her first enterprise was at Medina del Campo, a 



SAINT TERESA. 215 

large town fifty miles from Avila, on the road to 
Valladolid, and lately the residence of Isabella's Court. 
A lady of Medina, of small property, had applied for 
admission into San Josefs, and could not be received 
for want of room. She purchased a house, at Teresa's 
suggestion, which could be turned into a second convent. 
Difficulties were to be anticipated, of the same kind 
which had been encountered at Avila, and promptitude 
and secrecy were again necessary. A house itself was 
not enough. Medina could not provide the first sisters, 
and a colony had to be introduced from the parent 
stock. Teresa set out with two nuns from San Josefs, 
and four from the Incarnation, of whom two went with 
sinking hearts. Julian of Avila, the chaplain, was 
their single male escort and companion. They travelled 
in a cart, with a picture or two, some candlesticks for 
the altar — probably of tin, for they were utterly poor 
— a bell, and the sacrament. To a stranger who met 
them they must have appeared like a set of strolling 
mountebanks. In Avila itself they were thought mad, 
and the bishop had much the same opinion, though he 
would not interfere. It was hot August weather — the 
eve of the Feast of the Assumption — and the roads 
were parched and dusty. On the way they were met 
by the news that the Augustinians, whose wall adjoined 
the building which the lady had bought, intended to 
prevent them from settling there. They went on, 
nothing daunted, and reached Medina at nightfall. On 
the road they had been in danger of being arrested as 
vagrants by the police. Within the gates they were in 



216 SAINT TERESA. 

worse peril ; for the next day there was to be a bull- 
fight, and the bulls were being driven in through the 
streets. But nothing could stop Teresa. She had 
resolved to take possession at once, before she could be 
interrupted, and she went straight to her point. The 
party arrived at midnight, and never did intending 
settlers in an American forest look round upon a less 
promising scene. The courtyard walls were in ruins, 
the doors were off their hinges, the windows shutterless, 
the roof fallen in, the single room which would serve 
for a chapel half open to the air, and littered with dirt 
and rubbish. The group and the surroundings would 
have made a subject for Murillo — seven poor women 
and their priest, with the sacrament, for which they 
were more alarmed than for themselves, the desolate 
wreck of a place, ghastly in the moonlight, to which 
they had come expecting to find a home. Four hours 
of night remained, and then daylight would be on 
them. Teresa's energy was equal to the occasion. 
Not a thought was wasted on their own accommodation. 
The sisters were set to clear the dirt from the chapel. 
In a garret, the one spot that was waterproof, were 
some tapestries and bed-hangings. These would protect 
the altar. They had no nails, and at that hour the 
shops were closed ; but they picked as many as they 
wanted out of the walls. By dawn the altar was 
furnished, the bell was hung, mass was said, and the 
convent was an instituted fact. 

Sleepless and breakfastless, the unfortunate creatures 
then looked about them, and their hearts sank at their 



SAINT TERESA. 217 

prospects. They crept disconsolate into their garret, 
and sat watching the sacrament through a window, lest 
rude hands might injure it. In the evening a Jesuit 
father came. Teresa begged him to find lodgings for 
them till the house could be put in order ; but the 
town was full and for a week no suitable rooms could 
be found. Medina, naturally, was excited at the strange 
invasion, and was not inclined to be hospitable. At 
length a charitable merchant took compassion. An 
upper floor was provided, where they could live secluded, 
with a hall for a chapel. A Senora de Quiroga, a relation 
perhaps of the Archbishop of Toledo, undertook the 
repairs of the convent. The citizens relented and gave 
alms; and in two months the second house of the 
reformed Descalzos was safely established. 

This was in 1567. In the next year a third convent 
was founded at Malaga, with the help of another sister 
of the Duke of Medina Celi. From Malaga Teresa 

o 

was ' sent by the Spirit ' to Valladolid, where a young 
nobleman offered a villa and garden. While she was 
considering, the youth died ; he had led a wild life, and 
she was made to know that he was in purgatory, from 
which he was to be released only when the first mass 
was said on the ground which he had dedicated. She 
flew instantly across Spain with her faithful Julian. 
The villa did not please her; for it was outside the 
town, near the river, and was reported to be unhealthy. 
But the gardens were beautiful. Valladolid, stern and 
sterile in winter, grows in spring bright with flowers 
and musical with nightingales. Objections melted 



2i 8 SAINT TERESA. 

before the thought of a soul in penal fire. She took 
possession ; the mass was said; and, as the Host was raised, 
the pardoned benefactor appeared in glory at Julian's 
side on his way to paradise. Another incident occurred 
before she left the neighbourhood. Heresy had stolen 
into Castile : a batch of Lutherans were to be burnt in 
the great square at Yalladolid ; and she heard that 
they meant to die impenitent. That it could be 
anything but right to burn human beings for errors 
of belief could not occur to her ; but she prayed that 
the Lord would turn their hearts, and save their 
souls, and inflict on her as much as she could bear 
of their purgatorial pains. She supposed that she had 
been taken at her word — the heretics recanted at the 
stake — she herself never after knew a clay without 
suffering. 

Toledo came next. She was invited thither by her 
Jesuit friends. She was now famous. On her way she 
passed through Madrid. Curious people came about 
her, prying and asking questions. ' What fine streets 
Madrid has ! ' was her answer on one such occasion. 
She would not stay there. Philip wished to see her, 
but she had already flown. She had two sisters with 
her to start the colony ; of other property she had four 
ducats, two pictures, two straw pallets, and nothing 
besides. She had gone in faith, and faith as usual 
works miracles. Dofia Aloysia had not forgiven her 
desertion, and from that quarter there was no assistance ; 
but a house was obtained by some means, and the 
sisters and she, with their possessions, were introduced 



SAINT TERESA. 219 

into it. Of further provision no care had been taken. 
It was winter, and they had not firewood enough to 
' boil a herring.' They were without blankets, and 
shivered with cold ; but they were never more happy, 
and were almost sorry when fresh recruits came in and 
brought money and ordinary conveniences. 

The recruits were generally of middle rank. c The 
Lord ' had said that he did not want members of high 
families; and Teresa's own experience was not calcu- 
lated to diminish her dislike of such great persons. 
Ruy Gomez, Prince of Eboli and Duke of Pastrana, was 
Philip's favourite minister. His wife was the famous 
Afia de Mendoza, whom history has determined to have 
been Philip's mistress. I have told the story elsewhere. 1 
The single evidence for this piece of scandal is the 
presumption that kings must have had mistresses of 
some kind. Antonio Perez says that Philip was jealous 
of his intimacy with her. It is a pity that people will 
not remember that jealousy has more meanings than 
one. Perez was Philip's secretary. The Princess was 
a proud, intriguing, imperious woman, with whom 
Philip had many difficulties ; and he resented the 
influence which she was able to use in his cabinet. 
More absurd story never fastened itself into human 
annals, none which more signally illustrates the appetite 
of mankind for garbage. For a short period Teresa 
was brought in contact with this high lady, and we 
catch an authentic glimpse of her. She wanted some 



1 Vide supra, pp. 136, 137. 



220 SAINT TERESA. 

new excitement, as ladies of rank occasionally do. She 
proposed to found a nunnery of a distinguished kind. 
She had heard of the Nun of Avila as one of the 
wonders of the day, and she sent for her to Pastrana. 
Teresa had not liked the Princess's letters; but Ruy 
Gomez was too great a man to be affronted, and her 
confessor told her that she must go. A further induce- 
ment was a proposal held out to her of a house for 
monks, also of the reformed rule, for which she had 
been trying hitherto in vain. The Princess had a young 
Carmelite about her, a Father Mariano, who was ready 
to take charge of it. 

Teresa was received at Pastrana with all distinction. 
A casa was ready to receive sisters, but she found that 
the Princess had already chosen a prioress, and that in 
fact the convent was to be a religious plaything of a 
fashionable lady. Three months were wasted in discus- 
sion ; and in the course of them Teresa was questioned 
about her history. The Princess had heard of her 
autobiography, and begged to see it. She was not vain 
of her visions, and consented only when the Princess 
promised that the book should be read by no one but 
herself and her husband. To her extreme disgust she 
found that it became the common talk of the house- 
hold, a subject of Madrid gossip, and of vulgar imper- 
tinence. Dona Ana herself said scornfully that Teresa 
was but another Magdalen de la Cruz, an hysterical 
dreamer, who had been condemned by the Inquisition. 

Ruy Gomez had more sense than his wife, and 
better feeling. The obnoxious prioress was withdrawn, 



SAINT TERESA. 221 

and the convent was started on the usual conditions. 
The Barefoot Friars became a reality under Father 
Mariano, whom Teresa liked perhaps better than he 
deserved. As long as Ruy Gomez lived, the Princess 
did not interfere. Unfortunately he survived only a 
few months, and nothing would satisfy Dona Ana in 
her first grief but that she must enter the sisterhood 
herself. She took the habit, Mariano having provided 
her with a special dress of rich materials for the 
occasion. In leaving the world she had left behind 
her neither her pride nor her self-indulgence. She 
brought her favourite maid with her. She had a 
separate suite of rooms, and the other sisters waited 
upon her as servants. Teresa had gone back to Toledo. 1 
The Princess in her absence quarrelled with the prioress, 
who had been substituted for the woman whom she had 
herself chosen; and finally she left the convent, returned 
to the castle, and stopped the allowance on which the 
sisters depended. 

Teresa, when she heard what had passed, ordered 
the removal of the establishment to Segovia. Two 
years later we find her on the road to Salamanca. It 
was late in autumn, with heavy snow, the roads almost 
impassable, and herself suffering from cough and fever. 
This time she had but one companion, a nun older and 
scarcely less infirm than herself. * Oh these journeys ! ' 



1 The Princess had sent her 
back in her own carriage. ' Pretty- 
saint yon, to be travelling in such 
style as that 1 ' said a fool to her 



as she drove into Toledo. ' Is 
there no one but this to remind 
mo of my faults ? ' she said, and 
she never entered a carriage again. 



222 SAINT TERESA. 

she exclaims. She was sustained only by the recollection 
of the many convents which the ' Lutherans ' had de- 
stroyed, and the loss of which she was trying to repair. 
It was All Saints' Eve when they reached Salamanca. 
The church bells were tolling dismally for the departed 
souls. The Jesuits had promised that she should find 
a habitation ready, but they found it occupied by 
students, who at first refused to move. The students 
were with difficulty ejected. It was a great straggling 
place, full of garrets and passages, all filthily dirty. 
The two women entered worn and weary, and locked 
themselves in. The sister was terrified lest some loose 
youth might be left hidden in a corner. Teresa found 
a straw -loft, where they laid themselves down, but the 
sister could not rest, and shivered with alarm. Teresa 
asked her what was the matter. ' I was thinking,' she 
said, ' what would become of you, dear mother, if I was 
to die.' ' Pish,' said Teresa, who did not like nonsense, 
' it will be time to think of that when it really happens. 
Let me go to sleep.' 

Two houses were founded at Alva with the help of 
the Duke and Duchess ; and the terrible Ferdinand of 
Toledo, just returned from the Low Countries, appears 
here with a gentler aspect. Teresa's ' Life ' was his 
favourite study; he would travel many leagues, he said, 
only to look upon her. In one of her trances she had 
seen the Three Persons of the Trinity. They were 
painted in miniature under her direction, and she made 
the likenesses exact with her own hand. These pictures 
had fallen into the Duchess's hands, and the miniature 



SAINT TERESA. 223 

of Christ was worn by the Duke when he went on his 
expedition into Portugal. 

After this Teresa had a rest. In her own town she 
was now looked on as a saint, and the sisters of the 
Incarnation were able to have their way at last and to 
elect her prioress. There she was left quiet for three 
years. She had much suffering, seemingly from neu- 
ralgia, but her spirit was high as ever. Though she 
could not introduce her reformed rule, she could insist 
on the proper observance of the rule as it stood. She 
locked up the locutoria, the parlours where visitors 
were received, keeping the keys herself, and allowing 
no one to be admitted without her knowledge. A 
youth, who was in love with one of the nuns, and was 
not allowed a sight of her, insisted once on seeing 
Teresa and remonstrating. Teresa heard his lament- 
ations, and told him then that if he came near the 
house again she would report him to the King. He 
found, as he said, 'that there was no jesting with that 
woman.' One curious anecdote is told of her reign in 
the Incarnation, which has the merit of being authentic. 
Spain was the land of chivalry; knights challenged 
each other to tilt in the lists ; enthusiastic saints 
challenged one another to feats of penance, and some 
young monks sent a cartel of defiance to Teresa and 
her convent. Teresa replied for herself and the sisters, 
touching humorously the weaknesses of each of her own 
party :— 

' Sister Anne of Burgos says that if any knight will pray the 
Lord to grant her humility, and the prayer is answered, she will 
give him all the merits which she may hereafter earn. 



224 SAINT TERESA. 

' Sister Beatrice Juarez says that she will give to any knight, 
who will pray the Lord to give her grace to hold her tongue till 
she has considered what she has to say, two years of the merits 
which she has gained in tending the sick. 

' Isabel de la Cruz will give two years' merits to any knight 
who will induce the Lord to take away her self-will. 

' Teresa de Jesus says that, if any knight will resolve firmly 
to obey a superior who may be a fool and a glutton, she will give 
him on the day on which he forms such a resolution half her 
own merits for that day — or, indeed, the whole of them— for the 
whole will be very little.' 

The best satire of Cervantes is not more dainty. 

The sisters of the Incarnation would have re-elected 
their prioress when the three years were over ; but the 
provincial interfered, and she ' and her cart were soon 
again upon the road. She had worse storms waiting 
for her than any which she had yet encountered. 

At Pastrana, besides Mariano, she had become 
acquainted with another Carmelite, a Father Gratian, 
who had also become a member of the Descalzos. 
Gratian was then about thirty, an eloquent preacher, 
ambitious, passionate, eager to rule and not so eager to 
obey, and therefore no favourite with his superiors. On 
Teresa this man was to exert an influence beyond his 
merits, for his mind was of a lower type than hers. 
Such importance as he possessed he derived from her 
regard ; and after her death he sank into insignificance. 
He still tried to assume consequence, but his pretensions 
were mortified. In a few years he was stripped of his 
habit and reduced to a secular priest. He wandered 
about complaining till he was taken by the Moors, and 



SAINT TERESA. 225 

was set to work in a slave-yard at Tunis. Ransomed 
at last, he became confessor to the Infanta Isabella in 
Flanders, and there died. But it was his fate and 
Teresa's, that before these misfortunes fell upon him 
he was to play a notable part in connection with her. 
He had friends in Andalusia, and he persuaded Teresa 
that she must found a convent at Seville. It was a 
rash adventure, for her diploma extended only to the 
Castiles. She set out with six sisters and the insepar- 
able Julian. The weather was hot, the cart was like 
purgatory, and the roadside posadas, with their window- 
less garrets at oven heat, were, she said, 'like hell/ 
' The beds were as if stuffed with pebbles.' Teresa fell 
into a fever, and her helpless companions could only 
pray for her. When they were crossing the Guadal- 
quivir in a pontoon, the rope broke. The ferryman was 
thrown down and hurt ; the boat was swept away by 
the current. They were rescued by a gentleman who 
had seen the accident from his terrace. Cordova, when 
they passed through it, was crowded for a fete. The 
mob, attracted by their strange appearance, 'came 
about them like mad bulls/ At Seville, where Gratian 
professed to have prepared for their reception, they 
were met by a flat refusal from the archbishop to allow 
the establishment of an unendowed foundation, and to 
live on alms only was an essential to their rule. Teresa 
was forced to submit. 

God,' she wrote, ' has never permitted any foundation of 
mine to be set on its feet without a world of worry. I had not 
heard of the objection till I arrived. I was most unwillino- to 



226 SAINT TERESA. 

yield, for in a town so rich as Seville alms could have been 
collected without the least difficulty. I would have gone back 
upon the spot, but I was penniless, all my money having been 
spent upon the way. Neither the sisters nor I possessed anything 
but the clothes on our backs and the veils which we had worn in 
the cart. But we could not have a mass without the archbishop's 
leave, and leave he would not give till we consented.' 

But sharper consequences were to follow. In 
overstepping the boundaries of her province, Teresa 
had rashly committed herself. From the first the great 
body of the Carmelites had resented her proceedings. 
Circumstances and the Pope's protection had hitherto 
shielded her. But Pius the Fifth was gone. Gregory 
the Thirteenth reigned in his stead, and a chapter- 
general of the Carmelite Order held at Piacenza in 
1575 obtained an injunction from him prohibiting the 
further extension of the reformed houses. The founda- 
tion of the Seville convent was treated as an act of 
defiance. The General ordered its instant suppression. 
Teresa's other foundations had been hitherto quasi-inde- 
pendent; Father Jerome Tostado was dispatched from. 
Italy as commissioner to Spain, to reduce them all 
under the General's authority; and a new nuncio was 
appointed for the special purpose of giving Tostado 
his support. If Philip objected, he was to be told that 
the violation of order had caused a scandal to the whole 
Church. 

Little dreaming of what was before her, Teresa had 
been nourishing a secret ambition of recovering the 
entire Carmelite body to their old austerities. The late 
nuncio had been a hearty friend to her. She had 



SAINT TERESA. 22J 

written to the King to ask that Gratian might be 
appointed visitor-general of her own houses for the 
whole peninsula. The King had not only consented 
to this request, but with the nuncio's request, irregular 
as it must have seemed, Gratian's jurisdiction was ex- 
tended to all the Carmelite convents in Spain. Philip 
could not have taken such a step without Teresa's 
knowledge, or at least without Gratian's; and in this 
perhaps lies the explanation of the agitations in Italy 
and of Tostado's mission. Evidently things could not 
continue as they were. Teresa's reforms had been 
made in the teeth of the chiefs of the Order, and her 
houses, so far as can be seen, had been as yet under no 
organised government at all. She might legitimately 
have asked the nuncio to appoint a visitor to these ; for 
it was through the Pope's interference that she had 
established them; but she was making too bold a 
venture in grasping at the sovereignty of a vast and 
powerful foundation, and she very nearly ruined herself. 
Gratian was refused entrance to the first convent which 
he attempted to visit. The new briefs arrived from 
Rome. Teresa received a formal inhibition against 
founding any more houses. She was ordered to select 
some one convent and to remain there; while two 
prioresses whom she had instituted were removed, and 
superiors in whom Tostado had confidence were put in 
their places. Teresa's own writings, on which suspicion 
had hung since they had been read by the Princess, 
were submitted to the Inquisition. She herself chose 
Toledo for a residence, and was kept there under arrest 



228 SAINT TERESA. 

for two years. The Inquisitors could find no heresy in 
her books ; and, her pen not being under restriction, she 
composed while in confinement a history of her founda- 
tions as a continuation of her autobiography. Her 
correspondence besides was voluminous. She wrote 
letters (the handwriting bold, clear and vigorous as a 
man's) to princes and prelates, to her suffering sisters, 
to her friends among the Jesuits and Dominicans. 

The sequel is exceedingly curious. There is a belief 
that the administration of the Roman Church is one 
and indivisible. In this instance it proved very divisible 
indeed. The new nuncio and the General of the Car- 
melites intended to crush Teresa's movement. The 
King and the Archbishop of Toledo were determined 
that she should be supported. The Spanish Govern- 
ment were as little inclined as Henry the Eighth to 
submit to the dictation of Italian priests ; and when the 
nuncio began his operations, Philip at once insisted that 
he should not act by himself, but should have four 
assessors, of whom the Archbishop of Toledo should be 
one. It was less easy to deal with Tostado. Each 
religious Order had its own separate organisation. 
Teresa had sworn obedience, and Tostado was her 
lawful superior. She acted herself as she had taught 
others to act, and at first refused Philip's help in 
actively resisting him. The nuncio had described her 
as ' a restless woman, unsettled, disobedient, contu- 
macious, an inventor of new doctrines under pretence 
of piety, a breaker of the rule of cloister residence, a 
despiser of the apostolic precept which forbids a woman 



SAINT TERESA. 229 

to teach.' Restless she had certainly been, and her 
respect for residence had been chiefly shown in her 
anxiety to enforce it on others — but disobedient she was 
not, as she had an opportunity of showing. In making 
the change in the government of her houses, Tostado 
had found a difficulty at San Josefs, because it was 
under the bishop's jurisdiction. The alteration could 
not be made without her presence at Avila. He sent 
for her from Toledo. She went at his order, she gave 
him the necessary assistance, and the house was reclaimed 
under his authority. 

By this time temper was running high on all sides. 
Tostado was not softened by Teresa's acquiescence. The 
nuncio was exasperated at the King's interference with 
him. He regarded Teresa herself as the cause of the 
schism, and refused to forgive her till it was healed. 
She was now at Avila. The office of prioress was again 
vacant at the Incarnation. The persecution had en- 
deared her to the sisters, and a clear majority of them 
were resolved to re-elect her. Tostado construed their 
action into defiance ; he came in person to hold the 
election ; he informed the sisters, of whom there were 
now a hundred, that he would excommunicate every 
one of them who dared to vote for a person of whom 
he disapproved. The nuns knew that they had the 
right with them, for the Council of Trent had decided 
that the elections were to be free. Fifty-five of them 
defied Tostado's threats and gave their votes for Teresa. 
As each sister handed in her paper, Tostado crushed it 
under his feet, stamped upon it, cursed her, and boxed 



230 SAINT TERESA. 

her ears. The minority chose a prioress who was 
agreeable to him ; he declared this nun duly elected, 
ordered Teresa into imprisonment again, and left her 
supporters cut off from mass and confession till they 
submitted. The brave women would not submit. They 
refused to obey the superior who had been forced on 
them, except as Teresa's substitute. The theologians 
of Avila declared unanimously that the excommunica- 
tion was invalid. Tostado was only the more peremp- 
tory. He flogged two of the confessors of the convent, 
who had been appointed by the late nuncio, and he sent 
them away under a guard. ' I wish they were out of the 
power of these people/ Teresa wrote. ' I would rather 
see them in the hands of the Moors.' 

One violence was followed by another. Father 
Gratian was next suspended, and withdrew into a 
hermitage at Pastrana. The nuncio, caring nothing 
about the assessors, required him to surrender the com- 
mission as visitor which he had received from- his pre- 
decessor. Gratian consulted the Archbishop of Toledo, 
who told him that he had no more spirit than a fly, and 
advised him to appeal to Philip. The nuncio, without 
waiting for an answer, declared Gratian's commission 
cancelled. He cancelled also Teresa's regulations, and 
replaced her convents under the old relaxed rule. The 
Bishop of Avila was of opinion that the nuncio had 
exceeded his authority and had no right to make such 
a change. Teresa told Gratian that he would be safe 
in doing whatever the bishop advised ; and she recom- 
mended an appeal to the Pope and the King for a 



SAINT TERESA. 231 

formal division of the Carmelite Order. Tostado had 
put himself in the wrong so completely in his treatment 
of the sisters of the Incarnation, that she overcame her 
dislike of calling in the secular arm, and wrote a detailed 
account of his actions to Philip. Gratian himself lost 
his head and was only foolish. One day he wrote to 
the nuncio and made his submission. The next, he 
called a chapter of the Descalzos and elected a separate 
provincial. The nuncio replied by sending Teresa back 
as a prisoner to Toledo, and Gratian to confinement in 
a monastery. 

But the Spanish temper was now thoroughly roused. 
Philip and the Archbishop of Toledo had both privately 
communicated with the Pope on the imprudence of the 
nuncio's proceedings ; and the King on his own account 
had forbidden the magistrates everywhere to support 
either Tostado or his agents. The Duke of Infantado, 
the proudest of the Spanish grandees, insulted the 
nuncio at Court ; and the nuncio, when he appealed to 
Philip for redress, was told coldly that he had brought 
the insult upon himself. The Pope, in fact, being better 
informed, and feeling that he would gain little by irri- 
tating the Castilians for the sake of the relaxed Carme- 
lites, had repented of having been misled, and was only 
eager to repair his mistake. Teresa's apprehensions 
were relieved by a vision. Christ appeared to her, 
attended by his mother and San Josef. San Josef and 
the Virgin prayed to him. Christ said ' that the infernal 
powers had been in league to ruin the Descalzos ; but 
they had beeri instituted by himself, and the King in 



232 SAINT TERESA. 

future would be their friend and patron.' The Virgin 
told Teresa that in twenty days her imprisonment would 
be over. Not her imprisonment only, but the struggle 
itself was over. The nuncio and Tostado were recalled 
to Italy. Spain was to keep her ' barefoot ' nuns and 
friars. We need not follow the details of the arrange- 
ment. It is enough to say that the Carmelites were 
divided into two bodies, as Teresa had desired. The 
Descalzos became a new province, and were left free 
to choose their own officers. We have told the story 
at so much length, because it illustrates remarkably 
the internal character of the Spanish Church, and the 
inability of the Italian organisation to resist a national 
impulse. 

All was now well, or would have been well, but for 
mortal infirmity. Gratian went to Rome to settle legal 
technicalities. Teresa resumed her wandering life of 
founding convents. Times were changed since her 
hard fight for San Josef. Town Councils met her now 
in procession. Te Deums were sung in the churches, 
and eager crowds waited for her at the roadside inns. 
But so far as she herself was concerned, it is a question 
whether success added to her happiness. So long as an 
object is unattained, we may clothe it in such ethereal 
colours as we please ; when it is achieved, the ideal has 
become material; it is as good perhaps as what we 
ought to have expected, but is not what we did expect. 
Teresa was now sixty-four years old, with health irre- 
vocably broken. Her houses having assumed a respect- 
able legal character, many of them had after all to be 



SAINT TERESA. 



233 



endowed, and she was encumbered with business. ' The 
Lord/ as she said, continued to help her. When she 
was opposed in anything, the Lord intimated that he 
was displeased. If she doubted, he would reply, ' Ego 
sum,' and her confessor, if not herself, was satisfied. 
But she had much to do, and disheartening difficulties 
to overcome. She had been working with human beings 
for instruments, and human beings will only walk straight 
when the master's eye is on them. In the preliminary 
period the separate sisterhoods had been left very much 
to themselves. Some had grown lax. Some had been 
extravagantly ascetic. In San Josef, the first-fruits of 
her travail, the sisters had mutinied for a meat diet. A 
fixed code of laws had to be enforced, and it was received 
with murmurs, even by friends on whom she had relied. 1 
She addressed a circular to them all, which was charac- 
teristically graceful : — 



' Now then we are all at peace — Calzados and Descalzados. 
Each of us may serve God in our own way, and none can say us 
nay. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, as he has heard your 
prayer, do you obey him with all your hearts. Let it not be 
said of us as of some Orders, that only the beginnings were 
creditable. We have begun. Let those who come after us go on 
from good to better. The devil is always busy looking for means 
to hurt us ; but the struggle will be only for a time ; the end will 
be eternal.' 



1 One of the rules referred to 
jprayeis for the King, which were 
ito be accompanied by weekly whip- 
pings, such as Merlin ordered for 
the disenchantment of Dulcinea. 
' Sta.tutum fuit ut perpetuis tem- 
poribus una quotidie Missa, preces 



item continue, et una per singulas 
hebdomadas corporis fiagellatio pro 
Rege Hispanise ejusque familia in 
universis conventibus Carmelitarum 
utriusque sexus excalceatorum Deo 
offeratur.' 



234 SAINT TERESA. 

Three years were spent in organisation — years of 
outward honour, but years of suffering — and then the 
close came. In the autumn of 158 1 Gratian had 
arranged that a convent was to be opened at Burgos. 
Teresa was to be present in person, and Gratian accom- 
panied her. They seem to have travelled in the old 
way — a party of eight in a covered cart. The weather 
was wretched ; the floods were out ; the roads mere tracks 
of mud, the inns like Don Quixote's castle. Teresa 
was shattered with cough ; she could eat nothing ; the 
journey was the worst to which she had been exposed. 
On arriving at Burgos she was taken to a friend's house ; 
a great fire had been lighted, where she was to dry her 
clothes. The damp and steam brought on fever, and 
she was unable to leave her bed. 

The business part of her visit had been mismanaged. 
Gratian had been as careless as at Seville, and the same 
difficulties repeated themselves. The Council of Trent 
had insisted that all new convents should be endowed. 
The Archbishop of Burgos stood by the condition, and 
no endowment had been provided. Teresa was too ill to 
return to Avila. Month after month passed by. A wet 
autumn was followed by a wetter winter. Terms were 
arranged at last with the Archbishop. A building was 
found which it was thought would answer for the 
convent, and Teresa removed to it ; but it was close to 
the water-side, and half in ruins. The stars shone and 
the rain poured through the rents of the roof in the 
garret where she lay. The river rose. The lower story 
of the house was flooded. The sisters, who watched 



SATNT TERESA. ' 235 

day and night by her bed, had to dive into the kitchen 
for the soaked crusts of bread for their own food and 
hers. The communication with the town being cut off, 
they were nearly starved. Friends at last swam across 
and brought relief. When the river went back, the 
ground floors were deep in stones and gravel. 

Sister Anne of St. Bartholomew, who was herself 
afterwards canonised, tells the rest of the story. When 
spring came the weather mended. Teresa was slightly 
stronger, and, as her own part of the work at Burgos was 
finished, she was able to move, and was taken to Valla- 
dolid. But it was only to find herself in fresh trouble. 
One of her brothers had left his property to San Josefs. 
The relations disputed the will, and an angry lawyer 
forced his way into her room and was rude to her. She 
was in one of her own houses, where at any rate she 
might have looked for kindness. But the prioress had 
gone over to her enemies, shown her little love or 
reverence, and at last bade her 'go away and never 
return.' 

She went on to Medina. She found the convent in 
disorder ; she was naturally displeased, and found fault. 
Since the legal establishment of the Descalzos, she had 
no formal authority, and perhaps she was too imperious. 
The prioress answered impertinently, and Teresa was 
too feeble to contend with her. Twenty years had 
passed since that gipsy drive from Avila, the ruined 
courtyard, the extemporised altar, and the moonlight 
watch of the sacrament. It had ended in this. She 
was now a broken old woman, and her own children had 



236 SAINT TERESA. 

turned against her. She ate nothing. She lay all night 
sleepless, and the next morning she left Medina. She 
had meant to go to Avila, but she was wanted for some 
reason at Alva, and thither, in spite of her extreme 
weakness, she was obliged to go. She set out before 
breakfast with one faithful companion. They travelled 
all day without food, save a few dried figs. They arrived 
at night at a small pueblo, all exhausted, and Teresa 
fainting ; they tried to buy an egg or two, but eggs 
were not to be had at the most extravagant price. 
Teresa swallowed a fig, but could touch nothing more. 
She seemed to be dying. Sister Anne knelt sobbing at 
her side. ' Do not cry/ she said ; ' it is the Lord's will/ 
More dead than alive, she was carried the next day to 
Alva. She was just conscious, but that was all. She 
lay quietly breathing, and only seemed uneasy when 
Sister Anne left her for a moment After a few hours 
she laid her head on Sister Anne's breast, sighed lightly, 
and was gone. It was St. Michael's day, 1582. 

Nothing extraordinary was supposed to have hap- 
pened at the time. A weak worn-out woman had died 
of sufferings which would have destroyed a stronger 
frame. That was all. Common mortals die thus every 
day. They are buried ; they are mourned for by those 
who had cause to love them ; they are then forgotten, 
and the world goes on with its ordinary business. 
Catholic saints are not left to rest so peacefully, and 
something has still to be told of the fortunes of Teresa 
of Avila. But we must first touch for a moment on 
aspects of her character which we have passed over in the 



SAINT TERESA. 237 

rapid sketch of her life. It is the more necessary since 
she has been deified into an idol, and the tenderness, 
the humour, the truth and simplicity of her human 
nature, have been lost in her diviner glories. Many 
volumes of her letters, essays, treatises, memoranda of 
various kinds, survive in addition to her biography. 
With the help of these we can fill in the lines. 

She was not learned. She read Latin with difficulty, 
and knew nothing of any other language, except her 
own. She was a Spaniard to the heart, generous, 
chivalrous, and brave. In conversation she was quick 
and bright. Like her father, she was never heard to 
speak ill of any one. But she hated lies, hated all 
manner of insincerity, either in word or action. In 
youth she had been tried by the usual temptations; 
her life had been spotless ; but those whose conduct has 
been the purest are most conscious of their smaller 
faults, and she had the worst opinion of her own merits. 
The rule which she established for her sisterhoods was 
severe, but it was not enough for her own necessities. 
She scourged herself habitually, and she wore a 
peculiarly painful hair-cloth; but these were for herself 
alone, and she did not prescribe them to others. She 
sent a hair shirt to her brother, and she bade him be 
careful how he used it. ' Obedience,' she said, ' was 
better than sacrifice, and health than penance.' One of 
her greatest difficulties was to check the zeal of young 
people who wished to make saints of themselves by 
force. A prioress at Malaga had ordered the sisters 
to strike one another, with a view to teaching them 



238 SAINT TERESA. 

humility. Teresa said it was a suggestion of the devil. 
' The sisters are not slaves/ she wrote ; ' mortifications 
are of no use in themselves ; obedience is the first of 
virtues, but it is not to be abused/ The prioress of 
Toledo again drew a sharp rebuke upon herself. She 
had told a sister who had troubled her with some 
question to go and walk in the garden. The sister went, 
and walked and walked. She was missed the next 
morning at matins. She was still walking. Another 
prioress gave the Penitential Psalms for a general dis- 
cipline, and kept the sisters repeating them at irregular 
hours. ' The poor things ought to have been in bed/ 
Teresa wrote. ' They do what they are told, but it is 
all wrong. Mortification is not a thing of obligation.' 

Gratian himself had to be lectured. He had been 
inventing new ceremonies. f Sister Antonia,' she wrote, 
' has brought your orders, and they have scandalised 
us. Believe me, father, we are well as we are, and want 
no unnecessary forms. For charity's sake remember 
this. Insist on the rules, and let that suffice.' Gratian 
had given injunctions in detail about dress and food. 
' Do as you like/ she said, ' only do not define what our 
shoes are to be made of. Say simply, we may wear 
shoes, to avoid scruples. You say our caps are to be 
of hemp — why not of flax ? As to our eating eggs, or 
eating preserves on our bread, leave it to conscience. 
Too much precision only does harm.' 

Her own undergarments, though scrupulously kept 
clean, were of horse-cloth. She slept always on a sack 
of straw. A biscuit or two, an egg, a few peas and 



SAINT TERESA. 239 

beans, made her daily food, varied, perhaps, on feast- 
days, with an egg and a slice of fish, with grapes or 
raisins. 

Her constant trances were more a trial than a 
pleasure to her. She writes to her brother : ' Buen 
anda Nuestro Senor. — I have been in a sad state for 
this week past. The fits have returned. They come 
on me sometimes in public, and I can neither resist nor 
hide them. God spare me these exhibitions of myself. 
I feel half drunk. Pray for me, for such things do me 
harm. They have nothing to do with religion.' 

Nothing can be wiser than her general directions 
for the management of the sisterhoods. To the sisters 
themselves she says : — 

' Do not be curious about matters which, do not concern you. 
Say no evil of any one but yourself, and do not listen to any. 
Never ridicule any one. Do not contend in words about things of 
no consequence. Do not exaggerate. Assert nothing as a fact of 
which you are not sure. Give no hasty opinions. Avoid empty 
tattle. Do not draw comparisons. Be not singular in food or 
dress ; and be not loud in your laughter. Be gentle to others, 
and severe to yourself. Speak courteously to servants. Do not 
note other people's faults. Note your own faults, and their good 
points. Never boast. Never make excuses. Never do anything 
when alone which you would not do before others.' 

Her greatest difficulty was with the convent con- 
fessors. Teresa had a poor opinion of men's capacities 
for understanding women. ' We women,' she said, ' are 
not so easily read. Priests may hear our confessions for 
years and may know nothing about us. Women cannot 
describe their faults accurately, and the confessor judges 



240 SAINT TERESA. 

by what they tell him.' She had a particular dislike 
of melancholy women, who fancied that they had fine 
sensibilities which were not understood or appreciated. 
She found that confessors became foolishly interested in 
such women, and confidences came, and spiritual com- 
munications of mutual feelings, which were nonsense 
in themselves and a certain road to mischief. Teresa 
perhaps remembered some of her own experiences in 
her excessive alarm on this point. She insisted that 
the confessor should have no intercourse with any sister, 
except officially, and in the confessional itself. At the 
direction of her superiors, she wrote further a paper of 
general reflections on the visitation of convents, which 
show the same insight and good sense. 

The visitor was the provincial or the provincial's 
vicar, and his business was to inspect each convent once 
a year. 

* The visitor,' she said, ' must have no partiality, and, above 
all, no weakness or sentimentality. A superior must inspire fear. 
If he allows himself to be treated as an equal, especially by 
women, his power for good has gone. Once let a woman see that 
he will pass over her faults out of tenderness, she will become 
ungovernable. If he is to err, let it be on the side of severity. 
He visits once only in a twelvemonth, and unless the sisters know 
that at the end of each they will be called to a sharp reckoning, 
discipline will be impossible. Prioresses found unfit for office 
must be removed instantly. They may be saints in their personal 
conduct, but they may want the qualities essential to a ruler, and 
the visitor must not hesitate. 

' He must look strictly into the accounts. Debt of any kind is 
fatal. He must see into the work which each sister has done, 
and how much she has earned by it. This will encourage 
industry. Each room in the house must be examined, the 



SAINT TERESA. 241 

parlour gratings especially, that no one may enter unobserved. 
The visitor must be careful too with the chaplains, learn to whom 
each sister confesses, and what degree of communication exists 
between them. The prioress, as long as she retains office, must 
always be supported. There can be no peace without authority, 
and sisters sometimes think they are wiser than their superiors. 
No respect must be shown for morbid feelings. The visitor must 
make such women understand that, if they do wrong, they will 
be punished, and that he is not to be imposed upon. 

' As to the prioress, he must learn first if she has favourites ; 
and he must be careful in this, for it is her duty to consult most 
with the most discreet of the sisters ; but it is the nature of us 
to overvalue our own selves. When preference is shown, there 
will be jealousy. The favourite will be supposed to rule the 
Holy Mother : the rest will think that they have a right to 
resist. Sisters who may be far from perfect themselves will be 
ready enough to find fault. They will tell the visitor that the 
prioress does this and that. He will be perplexed what to think ; 
yet he will do infinite harm if he orders changes which are not 
needed. His guide must be the Eule of the Order. If he finds 
that the prioress dispenses with the rule on insufficient grounds, 
thinking this a small thing and that a small thing, he may be 
sure that she is doing no good. She holds office to maintain the 
rule, not to dispense with it. 

' A prioress is obviously unfit who has anything to conceal. 
The sisters must be made to tell the truth ; they will not directly 
lie perhaps, but they will often keep back what ought to be 
known. 

'Prioresses often overload the sisters with prayers and pen- 
ances, so as to hurt their health. The sisters are afraid to com- 
plain, lest they be thought wanting in devotion ; nor ought they 
to complain except to the visitor. . . . The visitor, therefore, 
must be careful about this. Especially let him be on his guard 
against saintly prioresses. The first and last principle in manag- 
ing women is to make them feel that they have a head over them 
who will not be moved by any earthly consideration ; that they 
are to observe their vows, and will be punished if they break 
them ; that his visit is not an annual ceremony, but that he keeps 
his eye on the daily life of the whole establishment. Women 
generally are honourable and timid \ they will think it wrong 

R 



242 



SAINT TERESA. 



sometimes to report the prioress's faults. He will want all his 
discretion. 

' He should enquire about the singing in the choir ; it ought 
not to be loud or ambitious ; fine singing disturbs devotion, and 
the singers will like to be admired. He should notice the dresses 
too ; if he observe any ornament on a sister's dress, he should 
burn it publicly. This will be a lesson to her. He should 
make his inspection in the morning, and never stay to dinner, 
though he be pressed ; he comes to do business, not to talk. If 
he does stay, there must only be a modest entertainment. I 
know not how to prevent excess in this respect, for our present 
chief never notices what is put before him — whether it is good or 
bad, much or little. 1 I doubt whether he even understands. 

'Finally the visitor must be careful how he shows by any 
outward sign that he has a special regard for the prioress. If he 
does, the sisters will not tell him what she really is. Each of 
them knows that she is heard but once, while the prioress has 
as much time as she likes for explanations and excuses. The 
prioress may not mean to deceive, but self-love blinds us all. I 
have been myself taken in repeatedly by mother superiors, who 
were such servants of God that I could not help believing them. 
After a few days' residence, I have been astonished to find how 
misled I have been. The devil, having few opportunities of 
tempting the sisters, attacks the superiors instead. I trust none 
of them till I have examined with my own eyes. ' 



Shrewder eyes were not perhaps in Spain. 'You 
deceived me in saying she was a woman/ wrote one of 
Teresa's confessors. ' She is a bearded man/ 

To return to her story. She died, as has been said, 
at Alva, and there was nothing at first to distinguish 
her departure from that of ordinary persons. She had 
fought a long battle. She had won the victory ; but 
the dust of the conflict was still flying ; detraction was 



1 This was meant as a hint to 
Gratian, who was much too fond 
of dining with the sisterhoods. 



Perhaps much of the rest was also 
intended for him. 



SAINT TERESA. ' 243 

still busy ; and honour with the best deserving is seldom 
immediately bestowed. The air has to clear, the passions 
to cool, and the spoils of the campaign to be gathered, 
before either the thing accomplished or the doer's 
merits can be properly recognised. Teresa's work was 
finished; but she had enemies who hated her; half 
friends who were envious and jealous ; and a world of 
people besides, to say that the work was nothing very 
wonderful, and that they could have done as well 
themselves if they had thought it worth while. 

It is always thus when persons of genuine merit first 
leave the earth. As long as they are alive and active 
they make their power felt ; and when they are looked 
back upon from a distance they can be seen towering 
high above their contemporaries. Their contemporaries, 
however, less easily admit the difference ; and when 
the overmastering presence is first removed, and they 
no longer feel the weight of it, they deny that any 
difference exists. 

Teresa was buried where she died. Spanish tombs 
are usually longitudinal holes perforated in blocks of 
masonry. The coffin is introduced; the opening is 
walled up, and a tablet with an inscription indicates and 
protects the spot. In one of these apertures attached 
to the Alva convent Teresa was placed. The wooden 
coffin, hastily nailed together, was covered with quick- 
lime and earth. Massive stones were built in after it, 
and were faced with solid masonry. There she was left 
to rest ; to be regarded, as it seemed, with passionate 
affection by the sisters who survived her, and then to 



244 SAINT TERESA. 

fade into a shadow and be remembered no more for 
ever. But the love of those sisters was too intense, and 
their faith too deep. ' Calumny,' says Sir Arthur Helps, 
' can make a cloud seem a mountain ; can even make 
a cloud become a mountain/ Love and faith are no 
less powerful enchanters, and can convert into facts 
the airy phantoms of the brain. The sisters w 7 hen 
they passed her resting-place paused to think of her, 
and her figure as it came back to them breathed frag- 
ranee sweet as violets. Father Gratian, who had been 
absent from the deathbed, came on a visitation to the 
convent nine months after. His imagination was as 
active as that of the sisterhood : he perceived, not the 
violet odour only, but a fragrant oil oozing between the 
stones. The tomb was opened, the lid of the coffin was 
found broken, and the earth had fallen through. The 
face was discoloured, but the flesh was uncorrupted, and 
the cause of the odour was at once apparent in the 
ineffable sweetness which distilled from it. The body 
was taken out and washed. Gratian cut off the left 
hand and secured it for himself. Thus mutilated, the 
body itself was replaced, and Gratian carried off his 
prize, which instantly worked miracles. The Jesuit 
Ribera, who was afterwards Teresa's biographer, and 
had been present at the opening, saved part of the earth. 
He found it ( sweet as the bone of St. Lawrence which 
was preserved at Avila.' The story flew from lip to lip. 
Gratian, zealous for the honour of the reformed branch 
of the Carmelites, called a chapter, and brought his 
evidence before it that their founder was a saint. 



SAINT TERESA. 245 

Teresa's communications with the other world at once 
assumed a more awful aspect. The chapter decided 
that, as at Avila she was born, as at Avila she was first 
admitted to converse with Christ, and as there was her 
first foundation, to Avila her remains must be removed, 
and be laid in the chapel of San Josef. The sisters at 
Alva wept, but submitted. They were allowed to keep 
the remnant of the arm from which Gratian had taken 
off the hand. Other small portions were furtively 
abstracted. The rest was solemnly transferred. 

This was in 1 585, three years after her death. But 
it was not to be the end. The Alva family had the 
deepest reverence for Teresa. The Great Duke was 
ofone, but his son who succeeded him, and his brother, 
the Prince of St. John's, inherited his feelings. They 
were absent at the removal, and had not been consulted. 
When they heard of it, they held their town to have 
been injured and their personal honour to have been 
outraged. They were powerful. They appealed to 
Rome, and were successful. Sixtus the Fifth, in 1586, 
sent an order to give them back their precious posses- 
sion, and Teresa, who had been a wanderer so long, was 
sent again upon her travels. A splendid tomb had 
been prepared in the convent chapel at Alva, and the 
body, brought back again from Avila, lay in state in 
the choir before it was deposited there. The chapel 
was crowded with spectators : the Duke and Duchess 
were present with a train of nobles, the Provincial 
Gratian, and a throng of dignitaries, lay and ecclesiastic. 
The features were still earth-stained, but were other- 



246 SAINT TERESA. 

wise unaltered. The miraculous perfume was over- 
powering. Ribera contrived to kiss the sacred foot, 
and to touch the remaining arm. He feared to wash 
his hands afterwards, lest he should wash away the 
fragrance ; but he found, to his delight, that no washing 
affected it. Gratian took another finger for himself; a 
nun in an ecstasy bit out a portion of skin; and for 
this time the obsequies were ended. Yet, again, there 
was another disentombment, that Teresa might be 
more magnificently coffined, and the General of the 
Carmelites came from Italy that he might see her. 
This time, the Pope had enjoined that there should be 
no more mutilation; but nothing could restrain the 
hunger of affection. Illustrious persons who were 
present, in spite of Pope and decency, required relics, 
and were not to be denied. The General distributed 
portions among the Alva sisterhood. The eye-witness 
who describes the scene was made happy by a single 
finger-joint. The General himself shocked the feelings 
or roused the envy of the bystanders by tearing out an 
entire rib. Then it was over, and all that remained of 
Teresa was left to the worms. 

But the last act had still to be performed. Spanish 
opinion had declared Teresa to be a saint; the Church 
had to ratify the verdict. Time had first to elapse for 
the relics to work miracles in sufficient quantity, and 
promotion to the highest spiritual rank could only be 
gradual and deliberate. Teresa was admitted to the 
lower degree of beatification by Paul the Fifth in 1614. 
She was canonised (relata inter Deos) eight years later 



SAINT TERESA. 247 

by Gregory the Fifteenth, in the company of St. Isidore, 
Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, and Philip Neri. If 
a life of singular self-devotion in the cause of Catholic 
Christianity could merit so lofty a distinction, no one 
will challenge Teresa's claim to it. She had been an 
admirable woman, and as such deserved to be remem- 
bered. But she was to be made into an object of 
popular worship, and evidence of mere human excel- 
lence was not sufficient. A string of miracles were 
proved to have been worked by her in her lifetime, 
the witnesses to the facts being duly summoned and 
examined. Her sad, pathetic death-scene was turned 
into a phantasmagoria. Old people were brought to 
swear that the Convent Church had been mysteriously 
illuminated ; Christ and a company of angels had stood 
at the bedside to receive the parting soul; and the 
room had been full of white floating figures, presumed 
to be the eleven thousand virgins. Others said that a 
white dove had flown out of her mouth when she died, 
and had vanished through the window; while a dead 
tree in the garden was found next morning covered 
with white blossom. 

The action of the relics had been still more 
wonderful. If cut or punctured they bled. They 
had continued uncorrupted. They were still fragrant. 
A cripple at Avila had been restored to strength by 
touching a fragment; a sister at Malaga with three 
cancers on her breast had been perfectly cured — with 
much more of the same kind. 

Next the solemn doctors examined Teresa's cbarac- 



248 SAINT TERESA. 

ter, her virtues of the first degree, her virtues of the 
second degree, the essentials of sanctitas in specie. 
Faith, Hope, Charity, love of Christ, were found all 
satisfactory. Her tears at the death of Pius the Fifth 
proved her loyalty to the Church. The exceptional 
features followed, her struggles with the cacodsemon, her 
stainless chastity, her voluntary poverty, her penance, 
her whip, her hair-cloth, her obedience, her respect for 
priests, her daily communion, her endurance of the 
devil's torments, and, as the crown of the whole, her 
intercourse with San. Josef, the Virgin, and her Son. 

Her advocate made a splendid oration to the Pope. 
The Pope referred judgment to the Cardinals, Arch- 
bishops, and Bishops, whose voices were unanimous, 
and Teresa was declared a member of the already 
glorified company to whom prayers might lawfully be 
uttered. 

Teresa's image still stands in the Castilian churches. 
The faithful crowd about her with their offerings, and 
dream that they leave behind them their aches and 
pains; but her words were forgotten, and her rules 
sank again into neglect. The Church of Rome would 
have done better in keeping alive Teresa's spirit than 
in converting her into a goddess. Yet the Church of 
Rome is not peculiarly guilty, and we all do the same 
thino- in our own way. When a great teacher dies who 
has told us truths which it would be disagreeable to act 
upon, we write adoring lives of him, we place him in 
the intellectual pantheon; but we go on as if he had 
never lived at all. We put up statues to him as if that 



SAINT TERESA. 249 

would do as. well, and the prophet who has denounced 
idols is made an idol himself. Yet good seed scattered 
broadcast is never wholly wasted. Though dying out 
in Spain and Italy, the Carmelite Sisterhoods are 
reviving in Northern Europe, and they owe such life 
as they now possess to Teresa of Avila. The nuns of 
Compiegne, who in 1794 fell under the displeasure 
of Robespierre, were Carmelites of Teresa's order. 
Vergniaud and his twenty-two companions sang the 
Marseillaise at the scaffold, the surviving voices keeping 
up the chorus, as their heads fell one by one till all 
were gone. Teresa's thirteen sisters at Compiegne 
sang the ' Veni Creator ' as the knife of the Convention 
made an end of them, the prioress singing the last 
verse alone amidst the bodies of her murdered flock. 



THE TEMPLABS. 



I. 



I HA YE chosen, I fear, a somewhat remote subject 
for these lectures, 1 and the remoteness is not the 
only objection. I might have gone farther back, and 
yet been nearer to our modern interests. I might 
have given you an account, had I known anything 
about the matter, of the people who lived in the pile- 
dwellings in the Swiss lakes ; or of the old sea-rovers 
who piled up the kitchen-middens on the shores of the 
Baltic; or I might have gone back to the primaeval 
missing link between us and the apes, the creatures 
who split the bones which we find in Kent's Cavern, 
and were the contemporaries of the cave-bears and the 
big cats who then lived in these islands. In talking 
about any of these I should have been on a level with 
modern curiosity. We are all eager to know more 
about these ancestors of ours, since Darwin has thrown 
doubts upon our supernatural origin. At any rate, 



1 These papers were originally lectures delivered at Edinburgh 
before the Philosophical Institution in 1885. 



THE TEMPLARS. 251 

however, I shall not ask you to go so far back with me 
by a good many thousand years. The military Orders 
of the Middle Ages, if different from ourselves, are but 
creatures of yesterday in comparison, and there is an 
interest even of a scientific kind in observing the 
strangely varied forms which human nature is capable 
of assuming. Whatever has come out of man lies 
somewmere in the character of man. Human nature 
is said to be always the same ; but it is the same only 
in the sense that the crab apple and the endless 
varieties of garden apples are the same. Analyse the 
elements and you find them to appearance the same. 
There is some force in the seed (we cannot tell what) 
which makes one plant a crab and another a fruit-tree. 
In the man the difference lies in the convictions which 
he entertains about his origin, his duties, bis responsi- 
bilities, his powers. With him, too, there is an original 
vital force which will make each individual something 
different from his neighbour; but trie generic type is 
formed by his creed. As bis belief, so is his character. 
According to his views of what life is given him for, 
he becomes a warrior, a saint, a patriot, a rascal, a 
sensualist, or a comfortable man of business, who keeps 
his eye on the main chance, and does not go into 
dreams. And as you look along the ages you see a 
tendency in masses of men to drift into one or other of 
these forms. 

Carlyle tells of a conversation at which he was once 
present in this city more than fifty-six years ago. Some 
one was talking of the mischief which beliefs had pro- 



252 THE TEMPLARS. 

duced in the world. 'Yes,' Carlyle said 'belief has 
done much evil ; but it has. done all the good.' We do 
not, we cannot certainly know what we are, or where we 
are going. But if we believe nobly about ourselves, we 
have a chance of living nobly. If we believe basely, 
base we shall certainly become. 

In a lecture which I had once the honour of address- 
ing you in this place I spoke of the effect of the Re- 
formation on the Scotch character. I described it as 
like turning iron into steel. There had been steel 
enough, before among the lairds and barons, but the 
people had been soft metal : they followed their chiefs, 
going this way and that way as they were told. After 
Knox's time they had wills of their own, and we all 
know what they became. The military Orders about 
whom I am now to speak grew into a shape at least 
equally noticeable. Their history is extremely curious. 
It raises the most intricate questions as to the value of 
historical evidence. It illustrates both sides of belief, 
the good of it and the evil of it. I speak of Orders, but 
I shall confine myself to one — to the Order of the 
Templars. There were three great military Orders — 
the Templars, the Knights Hospitallers, and the Teu- 
tonic Knights. Other smaller bodies of the same kind 
grew up beside them ; but it was in the Templars that 
the idea, if I may call it so, was perfectly realised. 
To understand them is to understand the whole 
subject. 

Scotch and English people, when they hear of 
Templars, all think instinctively of Brian de Bois 



THE TEMPLARS. 253 

Guilbert. In Sir Brian a Templar stands before us, 
or seems to stand in flesh and blood, and beside him 
stands Scott's other Templar, Sir Giles Amaury, the 
Grand Master, in ' The Talisman.' No one can doubt 
that we have here real men, as distinct as genius could 
produce. The Germans say that when a genuine char- 
acter has been brought into being, it matters nothing 
whether such a figure ever existed in space and time. 
The creative spirit has brought him forth somehow, and 
he belongs thenceforward to the category of real exis- 
tences. Men, doubtless, Sir Brian and Sir Giles both 
were ; but Scott, like Homer, sometimes slept. They 
were men, but in one important respect, at least, they 
were not Templars. Rebecca calls Sir Brian a perjured 
priest. Sir Giles Amaury hears Conrad's confession 
before he gives him absolution with his dagger. The 
Templars were not priests ; they were laymen as much 
as kings and barons. They bound themselves by the 
three monastic vows of poverty, chastity, and obedi- 
ence. They were, as a religious Order, subject to the 
Pope, and soldiers of the Church. Other orders they 
had none. They had chaplains affiliated, who said mass 
for them and absolved them. But these chaplains were 
separate and subordinate. They could hold no rank in 
the society. Grand Masters, preceptors, priors, were 
always lay. They were a new thing in Christendom, as 
St. Bernard said. The business of priests was to pray. 
The business of the knights was to pray too, but only as 
all other men prayed. Their peculiar work was to fight. 
Sir Walter was an Episcopalian, but owing, perhaps, to 



254 THE TEMPLARS. 

his North-British training, he never completely appre- 
hended the great mystery of apostolical succession. To 
him a monk was a priest. We in this generation, who 
have learnt the awful nature of the difference, must 
clear our minds of that error, at any rate. 

Now for what the Templars were. 

A good many of us have probably been in the Temple 
Church in London. The Templars were famous for the 
beauty of their churches, and this particular church, 
now that the old pews have been cleared out, is almost in 
the condition in which they left it. In the ante-chapel 
there lie on the floor the figures of nine warriors, repre- 
sented, not as dead or asleep, but reclining as they 
might have reclined in life, modelled all of them with 
the highest contemporary art, figures that have only to 
rise to their feet to stand before us as they actually were 
when quick and breathing on earth. The originals of 
them, if they are rightly named, were not themselves 
Templars : they were great Barons and Statesmen. But 
they were associates of the Order, and in dress and 
appearance doubtless closely resembled them. They 
are extremely noble figures. Pride is in every line of 
their features, pride in every undulation of their forms ; 
but it is not base, personal pride. There is the spirit 
in them of the soldier, the spirit of the saint, the spirit 
of the feudal ruler, and the spirit of the Catholic 
Church — as if in them was combined the entire genius 
of the age, the pride of feudalism and the pride of 
the Church, the pride of a soul disdainful of all 
personal ease or personal ambition. 



THE TEMPLARS. 255 

That they were placed where they are, and that they 
were allowed to remain there, is at least some indication 
that the charges on which the Templars were condemned 
found no belief in England. The monuments of the 
Pembrokes would never have been allowed to remain in 
a scene which had been desecrated by unimaginable 
infamies. What the charges were, and how the Order 
fell, it will be my business to tell you. I have no cause 
to defend, or sympathy to tempt me to make out a case 
one way or the other. The Templars in Europe, if they 
had been allowed to survive, would have become the 
Pope's Janissaries, and so far as I have any special lean- 
ing in those mediaeval quarrels, it is towards the Civil 
Powers and not towards the Church. I believe that it 
would have been worse for Europe, and not better, if the 
Popes had been able to maintain their pretensions. If it 
had really been made out that there was as much vice in 
the Templars' houses as there undoubtedly was among 
the other celibate Orders, there would have been nothing 
in it to surprise me, and it would have interfered with 
no theory of mine. So now I will go on with the story. 

The Templars grew out of the Crusades — that 
supreme folly of the Middle Ages, as it is the fashion 
now to call them. For myself, I no more call the Cru- 
sades folly than I call the eruption of a volcano folly, or 
the French Revolution folly, or any other bursting up of 
the lava which lies in nature or in the hearts of man- 
kind. It is the way in which nature is pleased to shape 
the crust of the earth and to shape human society. 



256 THE TEMPLARS. 

Our business with these things is to understand them, 
not to sit in judgment on them. i 

In the eleventh century a great wave of religious 
enthusiasm passed over Christendom. Men had ex- 
pected that the world would end at the year icoo. 
When it did not end, and went on as before, instead of 
growing careless, they grew more devout. The Popes, 
under the influence of this pious emotion, acquired a 
universal and practical authority, such as had never 
before been conceded to them. Religion became the 
ruling principle of life to an extent which has never 
perhaps been equalled, save in Protestant countries in the 
century which succeeded the Reformation. There was 
then one faith in Western Christendom, one Church, and 
one Pope. The creed, if you please, was alloyed with 
superstition, but the power of it, so long as the super- 
stition was sincere, was not less on that account, but 
was greater; and Christendom became capable of a 
united action which had not before been possible. In 
times when religion is alive Christianity is not a history, 
but a personal experience. Christ himself was supposed 
to be visibly present; on the altar of every church and 
chapel. His mother, the apostles, and the saints were 
actively at work round the daily life of every one. The 
particular part of the earth where the Saviour had been 
born and had lived, where the mystery of human 
redemption had been wrought out, where occurred all 
the incidents which form the subject of the Gospel 
story, Nazareth and Capernaum, Bethlehem and Jem- 



THE TEMPLARS. 257 

sal em,, acquired a passionate interest in proportion to 
the depth of the belief. 

People didn't travel in those days for amusement. 
There was no Mr. Cook to lead them in flocks over the 
globe, or Murray's Handbooks, or omnibuses making 
the round of the Pyramids, but they travelled a great 
deal for their own purposes ; they travelled to scenes of 
martyrdom and to shrines of saints; they travelled for 
the good of their souls. We go ourselves to Stratford - 
on- Avon, or to Ferney, or to Abbotsford ; some of us 
go already to Ecclefechan and Craigenputtock, and the 
stream in that direction will by-and-by be a large one. 
Multiply the feeling which sends us to these spots a 
thousandfold, and you may then conceive the attractions 
which the Holy Places in Palestine had for Catholic 
Christians in the eleventh century. Christ was all 
which gave the world and their own lives in it any real 
significance. It was not a ridiculous feeling on their 
part, but a very beautiful one. Some philosopher after 
reading the Iliad is said to have asked, 'But what 
does it prove ? ' A good many people have asked of 
what use pilgrimages were. It depends on whether 
we have got souls or not. If we have none, the Iliad is 
a jumble of nonsense, and the pilgrim's cockle-shell was 
no better than a fool's cap and bells. But the prevailing 
opinion for the present is, that we have souls. 

From the beginning there had been pilgrimages to 
the Holy Places. Even after the Saracens had con- 
quered Palestine the caliphs had so far respected Chris- 
tian piety as to leave the Holy Sepulchre undesecrated 



258 THE TEMPLARS. 

and allow pilgrims to go and come unmolested. But 
the caliphs' empire was now disturbed by the wild 
tribes from the north behind the Caspian Sea, who had 
poured down into Syria. New and fiercer bands of 
Mahometans had possession of Palestine, and just when 
Europe was under the influence of the most powerful 
religious emotion, and had become able to combine to 
give effect to it, the Seljuks, Turcomans, miscellaneous 
Arabian robbers, became masters of the one spot on 
earth which was most sacred in the eyes of the western 
nations, and the pilgrims had no longer access to it. 

With a single impulse Christian Europe rose. They 
rushed blindly at their object, without preparation, 
without provision, half of them without arms, trusting 
that as they were on God's service God would pro- 
vide. Famine, disease, the sword swept them away 
in multitudes, and multitudes more followed, to die 
like the rest. The Crusades altogether are supposed 
to have cost six million lives, some say ten, but the end 
was for a time attained. In the last decade of the 
eleventh century Godfrey of Bouillon fought his way 
into Palestine with sixty thousand princes, peers, knights, 
and their own personal followers. He took Jerusalem. 
He made a Latin kingdom of it. For eighty-seven years 
the Holy City was ruled by a Christian sovereign; 
Palestine was distributed into fiefs, to be held by 
knights serving under the King of Jerusalem; and 
Christian Europe believed that it had done its duty. 
Alas ! it had but half done it. The object was to open 
the Holy Places again to western piety. Jerusalem 



THE TEMPLARS. 259 

might be Christian, but the country between Jerusalem 
and the sea swarmed with bands of roving Bedouins. 
The pilgrims came loaded with offerings, and fell as a 
rich prey to robbers at every turn of the road. The 
crusading knights in their iron coats could meet armies 
in the field, and take towns which could not run away ; 
they could build castles and portion out the districts, 
and try to rule on the European system ; but Europe 
was not Asia, and they could as little brush away the 
Saracen banditti as they could brush away the mosqui- 
toes. So it went on year after year, and Jerusalem was 
hardly more accessible to pious devotees than it had been 
before the conquest. 

At last in the very spirit and genius of the age, a 
small company of young French nobles volunteered 
their services as a pilgrim's guard. It was a time 
when all great work was done by volunteers. There 
was already a hospital volunteer service like our own 
modern Red Cross. The Crusaders had suffered miser- 
ably from wounds and sickness. A company of 
Hospitallers had been established with its head-quarters 
at Jerusalem, who grew afterwards into the Knights of 
St. John. 

Exactly on the same principle there was formed a 
fighting company, who undertook to keep the road 
between Acre and Jerusalem. The originators of it 
were two young French knights of noble birth, Hugh 
de Payens and Godfrey of St. Omer. They found 
seven others ready to join them, all like themselves of 
high rank, who had won their spurs in the battle-field. 



2 6o THE TEMPLARS. 

They called themselves poor brothers in Christ. They 
devoted themselves to Christ's service and his mother's. 
They took vows in the presence of the Patriarch, vows 
of the usual kind, to cut themselves off from all worldly 
interests ; the vow of poverty, the vow of chastity, the 
vow of absolute obedience to the Patriarch, and to the 
one among them whom they should choose as their 
head. Thus organised, they took the field as mounted 
police on the pilgrims' road. 

The palace of the Latin kings was on the site of 
Solomon's Temple. A wing of it was set apart as a 
pilgrims' home, and as the home and station of their 
guards. The knights had their suite of rooms, with 
appointments for their horses and servants, and it was 
from this that they took their name as Brothers of 
the Order of the Temple. The Church of the Holy 
Sepulchre was their chapel. They had a Gothic hall 
with lances in rack, and suits of armour hanging on the 
walls, and long swords, and crossbows, and battleaxes — 
very strange objects in the Temple of Jerusalem, almost 
as strange as the imaginary Gothic castle in the moun- 
tains above Sparta to which Faust and Mephistopheles 
transported Helen of Troy. 

It was here and thus that the Knight- Templars, 
who were so soon to fill so large a place in the world, 
began their existence — nine young gentlemen whose 
sole object in life was to escort pious souls to the scene 
of Christ's sufferings and resurrection. So much belief 
was able to do. Their life was spent in fighting. 
They had a battle-cry by which to know each other — 



THE TEMPLARS. 261 

Beaudani, as we know from * Ivanhoe ' ; but what 
Beauceant meant, no one can tell with certainty. It 
was, I believe, a cry of the Burgunclian peasantry — a 
sort of link with the old home. 

Every prince and baron had his armorial bearings. 
The Templars had theirs, though again we are astray 
for a meaning. It was two knights riding on one horse, 
and has been supposed to indicate their original poverty. 
But two knights on a single horse would have made 
but poor work with the light-armed and lightly 
mounted Bedouins ; and we know, besides, that each 
knight had two or three horses with servants to wait on 
him and them. Some think it meant brotherly love ; 
some that it was a badge of humility and simplicity. 
But this is guesswork ; the Templars were not clerks, 
and have left no explanatory records behind them ; when 
they perished, they perished entirely, and scarcely any 
documents of their own survive to gratify our curiosity. 
Anyway, it is clear that, though individually vowed to 
poverty, they were supplied either by the King or out 
of their own combined resources with everything that 
was necessary to make their work effective. The only 
fault among them was that they were too few for the 
business which they had undertaken. 

But enthusiasm was contagious in those days. 
These Brothers of the Temple made a noise in Europe ; 
the world talked about them. Popes and bishops sang 
their praises. Other earnest youths were eager to join. 
The Order was like a seed thrown into a soil exactly 
prepared for it. So far there were but nine knights 



262 THE TEMPLARS. 

held together by their own wills and their own vows. 
It was desirable to give them more cohesion and an 
enduring form. One of the nine was a kinsman of 
St. Bernard of Clairvaux. At the end of nine years, in 
1 1 27, there was to be a great Church Council held at 
Troyes. Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, sent two of the 
brethren to Europe to see St. Bernard, to see if possible 
Pope Honorius, to give an account to the Council of 
themselves and their doings, and to learn if it would 
be possible to enlarge their numbers. Evidently King 
Baldwin thought that if he was to hold Palestine he 
must have a military force of some kind for constant 
service. The Crusades were single efforts, exhausting 
and expensive. The Christian nobles came at their 
own cost ; they fought gallantly, but if they were not 
killed they went home after their first campaign. The 
Holy Land could not be held thus. An organised 
army, with paid troops, and regimental chests, and a 
commissariat, was out of harmony with the time. If 
the enthusiasm of Europe was to take a constant 
form, it could take effect best in a religious military 
Order, to be sustained in perpetuity as a permanent 
garrison. 

St. Bernard received his visitors with open arms. 
He carried them to the Pope. The Pope gave them 
his blessing and sent them on to the Council. The 
Council gave them a Charter, as we may call it, and 
formed them into an Order of regulars; and at once, 
from all parts of Europe, hundreds of gallant young 
men came forward to enter the ranks. The Pope had 



THE TEMPLARS. 263 

promised heaven to all who would take the Cross 
against the infidels. Service in person could be com- 
muted in favour of any one who would give lands to 
support the Knights of the Holy Brotherhood. The 
kings took up the cause. Hugh de Payens came back 
in person ; he was received in Paris ; he was received 
in London by our first Henry. Rich manors were 
settled on the Order in France, in England, in Spain, 
and in Germany. Priories were founded on each estate, 
to be as depots to a regiment, where novices could be 
received and learn their duties, and from which they 
could be passed on to the Holy Land as their services 
were required. The huge torrent of crusading enthu- 
siasm was, as it were, confined between banks and made 
to run in an even channel. 

A regular Order required a rule, and St. Bernard 
drew up a rule for the Knights of the Temple. There 
was now, he said, to be a war the like of which had 
never been seen before ; a double war against the whole 
powers of the devil in the field of battle and in the 
heart of man. The rule of the Templars had, of course, 
to be something different from the rules of the Bene- 
dictines and Cistercians. They were not humble men 
of peace, meek recluses whose time was divided between 
cloister and garden, whose chief duty was to sing masses 
for the souls of erring mankind. They were soldiers to 
whom peace was never known, who were to be for ever 
in the field on desperate and dangerous errands. They 
were men of fiery temper, hot of blood, and hard of 
hand, whose sinew had to be maintained in as much 



264 THE TEMPLARS. 

efficiency as their spirits. They were all nobly born, 
too ; younger sons of dukes, and counts, and barons. 
Very curious to look at, for we can see in them what 
noble blood meant at the time when the aristocracy rose 
to the command of Europe. 

If you please, therefore, we will look at this rule of 
theirs. It has not come down to us precisely as St. 
Bernard drew it up. It received additions and altera- 
tions as the Order enlarged. In essentials, however, 
the regulations remained unchanged as they had been 
at the beginning. St. Bernard was a Cistercian. He 
followed as far as he could his own pattern. The 
Templars were to be purely self-governed. The head 
was called the Grand Master. They chose him them- 
selves, and he was to reside always at the post of 
danger, in Palestine. Under him were Preceptors — 
four or five in each of the great nations of Europe. 
Under them were Priors, the superiors of the different 
convents of the Order. All these officers were knights, 
and all laymeu. The knights, as I said, took the three 
monastic vows. They abjured all personal property ; 
they swore to remain pure; they swore to obey the 
order of their superiors without question, without hesit- 
ation, as if it came from God. We need not think 
this servile. Even in our own days of liberty such 
obedience is no more than is required of every officer 
and private in a modern army. Except in battle, their 
dress was a white cloak, on which a red cross was after- 
wards embroidered ; white signifying chastity. Unless a 
knight remained chaste he could not see God. He had 



THE TEMPLARS. 265 

no lady-love in whose honour he could break a lance in 
the tournament, he had not even an imaginary Dulcinea, 
like Don Quixote, or a Gloriana, like the Paladins of 
King Arthur's court. The only woman to whom a 
Templar might devote himself was the Queen of 
Heaven. They were allowed no ornaments ; hair and 
dress were to be kept plain and simple. Abundant 
food was provided for them, meat and wine and bread 
and vegetables. And there is a very curious provision 
that they were to eat in pairs, each pair at a single 
board, that one knight might keep watch over the 
other, and see that he ate his dinner properly, and did 
not fast. To fast it seems was a temptation, to eat and 
drink a penance. 

Besides the general servants of the house, each knight 
had a special attendant of his own. The knight was 
forbidden to speak sharply to him, and was specially 
forbidden to strike him. 

Religious duties were strictly prescribed, but were 
modified by good sense. The knights, as a rule, were 
to attend the regular chapel services ; but if they had 
been out on duty at night they were let off matins, and 
might say their prayers in bed. If they had done any- 
thing wrong or foolish they were to confess to the Grand 
Master or head of the house ; if it was a breach of 
disci pliue the head of the house set them a penance ; if 
it was a sin they were sent to a priest, who at first was 
a secular outside the Order. They had little leisure ; 
their chief occupation was war. When not in the field 
they had their arms and horses to look after, which they 



266 THE TEMPLARS. 

were allowed to buy for themselves, charging the account 
to the house. 

Except by leave of the superior, they were to hold 
no correspondence with any one in the outer world, not 
even with mothers, sisters, or brothers. No brother of 
the. Order might walk about alone, or, when in a town, 
go into the streets, unless with leave asked and given. 
Fighting men had hot blood, and hot blood required 
to be restrained. Even an angry word spoken by 
one to another was instantly punished, and so was all 
light talk, especially when it turned on the other sex. 
If a brother of the Temple wanted to converse, it 
must be on serious or, at least, rational subjects. 
The most innocent amusements were considered 
trifling, and were not to be encouraged. A Templar 
was not to hunt, or hawk, or shoot, still less to play 
idle games. One exception only was made: it is a 
very noticeable one, and had not escaped Sir Walter. 
In Syria and Palestine there were still wild beasts, as 
there had been in David's time. St. Bernard could 
not permit his Templars to hunt deer or net partridges ; 
he did, however, by special statute, allow them to hunt 
lions. And, mind, those were not days of repeating 
rifles and explosive bullets : it was man and lion face 
to face, with spear and knife against teeth and claws. 
The lion no doubt in St. Bernard's mind was a type of 
the adversary; to hunt the lion was to hunt Satan. 
None the less, just as he had taken care that they 
should eat and drink enough, and not emaciate them- 
selves like intending saints, so he would have them 



THE TEMPLARS. 267 

men at all points, and give them sport, too, so long 
as it was dangerous, and needed courage. 

We have travelled far since those days. The taste 
for sport still survives among us, and along with it at 
bottom there is, I dare say, in our young aristocrats as 
firm a temper and as high a spirit as in those young 
pupils of the Abbot of Clairvaux, were there any 
modern abbots who could give their lives a meaning 
and a purpose suited to our own times. I heard the 
other day of a very fine young fellow, who in the 
twelfth century might have been spearing lions and 
escorting pilgrims among the Templars, performing 
the extraordinary exploit of shooting fifty brace of 
grouse in twenty-five minutes on some moor in York- 
shire ; and the feat was considered so memorable that a 
granite column was erected on the spot to commemorate 
it. Some modern St. Bernard seems to me to be 
desperately needed. 

I will mention one more point in the rule of the 
Templars. It was customary in those days when men 
of rank were taken in battle to hold them to ransom, 
the price of redemption being measured by their 
wealth. The Templars had no personal wealth ; and 
the wealth of the Order was to be spent in God's 
service, not in man's. If a Templar was taken by the 
Saracens no ransom was to be paid for him ; he was to 
be left to his fate. His fate invariably was to be offered 
the alternative of the Koran or the sword ; and there 
is scarcely a recorded instance in which a Templar 
saved his life by abandoning his faith. 



268 THE TEMPLARS. 

I have said enough about these rules to show what 
sort of people the Templars were at the time when 
they began their career as a regular Order. Their 
numbers increased with extraordinary rapidity. A 
special branch was established in Aragon, where they 
could fight the Moors without leaving Europe. Hugh 
de Payens took three hundred knights back with him 
to Palestine, and if they wanted fighting he gave them 
enough of it. In every battle the Templars were in 
the front. Five years after nearly every one of the 
three hundred had been killed. Popes and bishops 
glorified them as martyrs, and the ranks filled faster 
than death could empty them. They were the passion 
and the admiration of the whole Christian world. 



II. 

As time went on, and the first enthusiasm passed away, 
the Templars became a political and spiritual force in 
the European system. The Grand Master took rank 
among the peers in the councils of princes, and in 
ordinary times he had the command of the military 
defence of Palestine. The kingdom of Jerusalem was 
never the stablest of monarchies ; but even the 
Saracens were sometimes exhausted. There were 
intervals of truce, intervals of peace ; negotiations and 
treaties had to pass between the Christian and the 
Moslem powers. The conduct of these negotiations 



THE TEMPLARS. 269 

fell to the Templars, and between them and the 
Saracens there grew up some kind of acquaintance. 
Having their home in the East they got to know the 
Eastern character. It was alleged afterwards that in 
this way their faith became corrupted. Scott has taken 
this view in his character of Sir Brian. Whether it 
was so or not I shall consider by-and-by. Nothing to 
their discredit can be concluded from the fact of the 
intercourse, because it was inevitable. Nor was any 
suspicion of the kind ever breathed till the eve of 
their fall. All that appears for certain is that, being 
soldiers, they became statesmen also, and the genera* 
experience is that soldiers make very good statesmen 
Only this is to be observed, that they became more 
closely connected with the Popes, and the Popes with 
them. For the first thirty years tbey were subject to 
the Patriarchs of Jerusalem, while secular priests, 
under the patriarchs' authority, heard their confessions 
and said mass for them. As a reward for their services 
the Popes relieved them from the patriarchs' jurisdiction, 
and took them specially to themselves. In their houses 
and on their domains in Europe they were exempted 
from all authority except that of Rome. No bishop 
anywhere was allowed to interfere with them. Instead 
of secular priests they were permitted to have special 
chaplains, ordained by bishops, but subject, after their 
introduction, to the rule of the Temple only. They 
were entirely isolated from all the other regulars. No 
brother of the Temple might leave it and become a 
Benedictine; and the more separate they became the 



270 THE TEMPLARS. 

ampler the privileges which the Popes seemed delighted 
to heap upon them. Many thousands of them by this 
time were spread over France, and England, and Spain. 
Their lands were released from tithe ; no priest or 
bishop's officer could levy tax or rate on a Templar's 
manor, while the Templars on their side might take 
the tithe which the priests looked on as their own. No 
prelate, no prince even, might put a Templar on his 
oath, or call on him for any feudal service. Popular 
as they had been at the beginning, the extraordinary 
favour with which the Popes honoured them began to 
be looked on with jealousy and resentment. And they 
had another privilege, peculiarly irritating to the 
bishops, and even to the Benedictines and Cistercians, 
who thought that if conferred on one Order it should 
have been conferred on all. Those who are acquainted 
with the state of Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth 
centuries know generally what an interdict meant. 
When any country or province was under an interdict 
the churches were closed, the church services were 
suspended ; the young could not get married, the sick 
could not be absolved, the dead could not be buried in 
consecrated ground, but lay in ditches like dogs ; 
human life stood suspended as if under a horrible 
curse. You may think so frightful a sentence was 
only issued on extraordinary occasions. On the 
contrary, it was the bishops' universal weapon, ^he 
instrument of their power, the unfailing fountain of 
their revenue, for an interdict once issued was not 
easily raised till every person in the province had bled 



THE TEMPLARS. 271 

for it. When bishops and nobles quarrelled, when 
archbishops quarrelled with bishops, or quarrelled with 
their flocks, they launched their interdicts like thunder- 
bolts, striking whole districts without discrimination. 
To the astonishment and rage of these great persons 
the manors of the Templars were made a land of 
Goshen, which the plague could not touch. Nor was 
this all. Wherever any Templar went on business of 
the Order the interdict was suspended, the church bells 
rang out, the sacraments were dispensed to the flocks, 
the bodies of the dead could be laid peacefully in 
hallowed graves. It was even believed, so bitter was 
the animosity, that individuals who were excommuni- 
cated were allowed to confess and receive absolution in 
the Templars' chapels. 

Thus protected, thus curtained round with exemp- 
tions and securities, it is not to be wondered at that if 
the rival clergy looked askance at the Templars, they 
came to think considerably of themselves. They were 
dangerous from their military strength; they owed 
allegiance to no earthly power, secular or spiritual, 
except the Pope's. To the Popes they owed their 
position, and in those long conflicts between the See of 
Rome and the kings and emperors, they repaid the 
Papacy by standing by it in all its quarrels. Princes 
feared them, bishops hated them for their independence, 
the clergy envied their liberties. They cared little; 
they were rich, they were strong; their persons were 
sacred. Being regarded so doubtfully, it is very re- 
markable that for the two centuries during which they 



272 THE TEMPLARS. 

were in their vigour, and down to the moment of 
their fall, } r ou rarely find anywhere in the contemporary 
monastic writers any moral scandals reported of them. 
Giraldus Cambrensis and others are never weary of 
drawing pictures of the gluttony and sensuality in the 
monasteries. Abbots and priors, if you can believe 
what is told by chroniclers and satirists, were wrapped 
often in the seven deadly sins, and bishops were not 
much better. But there is a curious silence about the 
Templars. They are credited invariably with desperate 
courage in the field. They are hardly ever, that I 
remember, accused of being false to their vows, and, 
undoubtedly, if there had been notorious ground for 
scandal we should have heard enough of it. For we 
do hear complaints of them of another kind, complaints 
of them as laymen encroaching on churchmen's functions, 
and of their overbearing ways. Now and then they 
were rebuked, even by the Popes, for overstraining their 
privileges. Very generally, indeed, you find remarks 
upon their haughty bearing. They had the double 
loftiness in them of churchmen and warriors, loftiness 
too great when single, when double past endurance. 
You see it in all their actions, you see it in the lines 
of those recumbent figures in the Temple Church, lines 
fashioned by the habitual tone of their thoughts, and 
perpetuated in stone by the artist who had seen and 
known them. 

King Richard (our Cceur de Lion) being sick once 
was attended by a French priest. The father spoke to 
him especially of three questionable daughters that he 



THE TEMPLARS. 273 

had, called Avarice, Sensuality, and Pride. Richard 
said, ' I have disposed of those three you speak of. I 
have given my avarice to the Cistercians ; I have given 

my sensuality ' (It is a well-known story, but the 

authors differ on the recipient of this quality. Some 
say to the Black Friars, some to the bishops, some to 
the clergy. I fear the variety implies that it fitted 
with each of them) ; but all agree on the last, that he 
gave his pride to the Templars. 

Proud they were, but with the pride of soldiers. 
Always on the testimony of their worst enemies, 
wherever there was fighting to be done with the 
infidel the Templars were in the thickest of it. No 
man ever knew a Templar a coward. Again and again 
in Palestine, when their ranks were thin and the 
Saracens hemmed them round in thousands, the 
Templars stood till the last man of them fell on the 
field, or fell afterwards for his faith if carried off a 
wounded prisoner. Such fighting was rarely or never 
seen among the bravest men that ever lived. 

In 1 1 87, when Saladin destroyed the Christian 
army near the Lake of Gennesareth, and when the 
wood of the true cross which they had with them fell 
into Saladin's hands, the Grand Master of the day and 
a number of knights were taken prisoners. Saladin 
admired their daring. He would have made them 
princes of his own empire if they would have changed 
their creed ; they all refused, and were all slain. 

Yet the kings did not like them : they were always 
too true to the Popes. The Templars were a thorn in 



274 THE TEMPLARS. 

the side of Coeur de Lion. They were a thorn in the 
side of the great Frederic the Second of Germany. I 
need not go through the details of their history. The 
kingdom of Jerusalem lasted but eighty- seven years ; 
Saladin then took the Holy City, and the Templars 
built themselves a great feudal castle near Acre, where 
they continued to protect the pilgrims. Pilgrims* 
Castle was the name of it — a palatial fortress like old 
Windsor, vast, stern, and splendid. Here henceforth 
were the headquarters of the Order. Here the Grand 
Master held his chapters and ruled as a sovereign; 
hither came the fresh draughts of knights from the 
European preceptories. Rich as they were, the austere 
severity of their habits never seems to have been 
relaxed. Their wealth was all expended upon the 
wars; they were powerful but they stood apart from 
all other men, loved by few and feared by all. They 
had no personal ties : they had no national ties : their 
nation was the Catholic Church : their chief was the 
Holy Father, and his enemies were theirs. They were 
in France, in England, in Scotland, in Spain, but they 
were not French, or English, or Scots, or Spaniards. 
They rarely mixed in any national struggles, and only 
when the Pope's interests were concerned — as, for 
instance, when they supported the legate, Pandulf, 
against King John. From the nature of the case, 
therefore, they could take no root in the national life 
anywhere. They were maintained only by the surviv- 
ing enthusiasm for the Crusades, and the unquestioned 
constancy with which they upheld the Cross against 



THE TEMPLARS. ' 2?$ 

the Crescent. Yet even in Palestine they were watched 
with jealousy. They knew the country. From long 
experience they knew the Arab nature ; and they had 
become prudent. If left to themselves, they would 
have made peace with the Soldans; they could have 
secured the neutralisation of Jerusalem, and a peaceful 
access to it for the pilgrims. But when they advised 
anything of this kind they were accused of treacherous 
correspondence with the enemy, and had to wipe the 
charge out by fresh acts of desperate gallantry. They 
would have saved the army of St. Louis in Egypt in the 
last fatal Crusade, but their advice was not taken. 
They were suspected of bad faith. Sir William of 
Sonnac, the Grand Master, when he could not be 
listened to in the council of war (one of his eyes had 
been dashed out in battle the day before, and the 
socket was still bleeding), cried out : ' Beauceant to the 
front! The army is lost. Beauceant and death!' 
He and all his comrades fell sword in hand. 

Surely those Templars were an extraordinary form 
of human beings. Loved they could not be ; they were 
anomalous, suited only to an anomalous state of things, 
yet someway admirable too ; for, whatever else they 
were, they could never have entered such an institution 
for their own pleasure. Dangers were gathering about 
them towards the end of the thirteenth century. Their 
lands were sometimes plundered, and the law was slow 
to help them. Bishops, in spite of Rome and its orders, 
now and then excommunicated individual Templars, 
and a Pope had to issue another angry bull to protect 



2*]6 THE TEMPLARS. 

them. Kings began to think that they were too rich 
and to covet some of their treasures. Our Henry the 
Third told the Grand Preceptor of England that they 
had been indulged too much, and that he must have 
money out of them. The Templars answered coldly 
that the King spoke as one that was not wise, and that 
the attempt might cost him his throne. It was their 
own existence that was in peril, not the Crown's, if they 
had known the truth of their position. 

The meaning of them was as a garrison for Palestine. 
Their strength was the service which they were render- 
ing: in the cause of the Crusades; and the Crusades 
and all that they had accomplished were now coming 
to an end. 

The campaign of St. Louis in Egypt was the last 
serious effort. After the defeat of St. Louis on the 
Nile, the Crusading spirit died away. The fortresses 
which the Christians held in the Holy Land fell one 
by one, and at last, after two hundred years of fighting, 
nothing was left of their conquests except the town of 
Acre and the country for a few miles round. The 
management of the defence rested on the Templars. 
The European princes had professed to maintain a 
garrison in Acre independent of them, but in 1289 the 
Templars had to report that the garrison were a mere 
company of vagabonds, ill fed and unpaid, and a 
universal nuisance. There had been a peace of several 
years with the Saracens, but the Acre soldiers plundered 
the country indiscriminately. The Saracens could get 
no redress. They declared war again, and this time 



THE TEMPLARS. 277 

they meant to rally all their strength and drive the 
Christians finally out. They came down on Acre with 
150,000 men. The Grand Master took the command 
of the miserable troops there, but against such a force 
he could do nothing. Pilgrims' Castle was evacuated 
and destroyed ; Acre was taken by storm : out of his 
own five hundred Templars only ten escaped : the 
garrison was destroyed, and the Holy Land from one 
end to the other was once more in the hands of the 
successors of Mahomet. The ten surviving Templars, 
with a few of the Hospitallers, escaped to Cyprus, 
which our Richard had taken one hundred years before. 
They chose a new Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, 
who was to prove their last. They refilled their ranks ; 
they had saved their treasury, and they renewed the 
war in Syria. But it was the feeble flicker of a dying 
flame. The mission of the Templars in the East was 
over. They held their vast estates for a purpose which 
was no longer a reality, and it became a question what 
was to be done with them. 

In Europe they were still strong and formidable, 
and to one of the great parties into which Europe was 
divided they could still be extremely serviceable. The 
Popes and the great powers of Europe had not yet 
settled their long differences. The successor of St. 
Peter still pretended to wield both the swords of the 
Apostle. Boniface the Eighth was as firm a champion 
of the pretensions of the Roman See to universal 
sovereignty as the boldest of his predecessors. As the 
military Orders were no longer required in Palestine, 



278 THE TEMPLARS. 

Boniface perhaps conceived that they could be employed 
no better than as soldiers of the Church at home. He 
proposed, as Innocent the Third had proposed before, 
to unite the three military Orders — Templars, Hospi- 
tallers, and the Teutonic Knights— into a single body. 
Could he succeed, he might then keep them in his own 
hand, to bring princess to order, who, like Frederic 
the Second of Germany, were not afraid of excom- 
munication. 

It was a daring scheme, and worthy of the head 
which designed it. If carried out, it might have 
changed the face of Europe. The smaller Orders must 
have been absorbed in the stronger, and the new organ- 
isation would have been simply the Templars enlarged. 
The Holy See could count with certainty on their 
allegiance. Like the Jesuits, they had renounced all 
natural ties ; they had no nation but the Church, and, 
like the Jesuits also, they had been trained in habits of 
unquestioning obedience. Their exceptional privileges 
were a retaining fee. They could keep these privileges 
only by the Pope's favour and in virtue of the fear 
which the Pope still inspired in the bishops and clergy 
of the National Churches. No temptation could be 
offered which would induce them to waver in their 
dependence, and it is quite possible that if the Popes 
could have secured to themselves the service of so 
strong an arm, the theocratic despotism of the Gre- 
gories and the Innocents might have been fixed for 
some centuries longer on the kingdoms of Western 
Christendom. 



THE TEMPLARS. 279 

Whether such a despotism would have been good 
for mankind is another question. If the Popes were 
infallibly wise, or infallibly good, or if they were wiser 
and better than the civil authorities ; if, under their 
rule, with the Templars to help them, the poor man 
would have found more justice, and the wrongdoer have 
been made to smart more surely for his sins, I, for one, 
am not so much in love with liberty but that I could 
have wished the Popes better success than they found. 
We ought to welcome, all of us, the rule and authority 
of those who have more knowledge of what is right and 
good than ourselves. 

If it was so; but the 'if is the difficulty. We 
cannot be sure of this supreme excellence of the Popes 
— at least some of us cannot. The intellectual revolt 
was only beginning, but wherever Albigenses or other 
speculative people were thinking for themselves, the 
Popes had betaken themselves already to sword and 
faggot. As to morals, princes might be wilful and 
ambitious, and barons harsh, and law courts venal ; but 
prelates, too, could be overbearing, and the Church 
courts were no purer than the civil courts. Every 
mediaeval chronicler, every monastic annalist is for ever 
declaiming at the avarice and rapacity of Rome. 

If the Popes had reason for wishing to keep the 
military Orders for their Janissaries, the French and 
English kings and the German Emperor might reason- 
ably enough regard such an arrangement with alarm. 

I have the greatest admiration for the poor brothers 
of the Temple. The fate which overtook them was as 



2 8o THE TEMPLARS. 

undeserved as it was cruel. But Nature, or Providence, 
or the tendencies of things, do as a fact sweep away 
obstacles which stand in the way of human development. 
Institutions may long survive their usefulness ; but they 
are taken away when they become actively mischievous. 
One could only wish that the process of taking them 
away was not so often tainted with a violent injustice 
which blinds us to the necessity of their removal. 

Their proper work was gone. If work was to be 
found for them in the future, it was to be as the armed 
hand of the Papacy. But the Hildebrand theory of 
things was near its close also. The struggle between 
the Popes and the temporal princes was to end in a 
compromise. The Popes were to have the shadow, or 
the spiritual supremacy ; the civil powers were to have 
the substance, and thus for such a body as the Templars 
there was no place left. The kings in Europe intended 
to be sovereign, each in his own dominions. The 
Templars were, or might be, in the way. They had 
vast revenues, which, now that the war in the East was 
over, they would be free to use for other aims and 
ambitions. The national bishops and clergy resented 
their arrogance, and were jealous of their immunities. 
In some way or other the kings would find it necessary 
to suppress them. But it was no easy task. They 
were brave, they were noble. As soldiers they were 
the best organised in Europe. They were careless of 
death, and as long as they had the Popes at their back 
it was quite certain that they would not fall without a 
struggle, while the Popes could not in honour consent 



THE TEMPLARS. 281 

to the abolition of an Order whose only crime was too 
great fidelity to the Holy See. It was accomplished by 
making the Templars the victims of an extraordinary 
accusation, which was intended to render them odious 
to mankind, and the story is one of the most curious in 
mediaeval history. 

As a rule I think it unwise to attempt to go behind 
the legal verdicts of distant ages. As a rule those who 
have been convicted of great crimes were probably 
guilty of them. Men have different ways of arriving at 
truth, but it is generally truth which they aim at, and 
so many circumstances are known to contemporaries of 
which posterity is absolutely ignorant, that it argues 
some presumption in posterity when it reviews con- 
fidently contemporary judgments. But the process of 
the Templars was peculiar. It was considered violent 
even in a violent age. The details are preserved almost 
to the smallest particulars, and are worth examining, if 
only as a picture of the manners of the time. 

The French king at that time was Philip le Bel — 
Philip the Beautiful — one of the most remarkable 
sovereigns that France ever had. His daughter we 
know of as Edward the Second's queen — She Wolf, as 
the poet Gray calls her. The parent wolf was born in 
1268. He became king at sixteen. He fell early into 
wars with England and Burgundy, extended his frontiers, 
drilled into subjection his own vassals. He then 
quarrelled, on the old grounds of the Papal pretensions, 
with Pope Boniface the Eighth. He had required a 
subsidy from his clergy. The Pope forbade them to 



282 THE TEMPLARS. 

pay. Philip answered with calling the Pope a fool, 
changing your ' Holiness ' into your ' fatuity/ Boniface 
excommunicated Philip. Philip burnt the bull as 
boldly as Luther burnt Pope Leo's. He denounced 
Boniface as a heretic, made war upon him, and took 
him prisoner. The poor Pope died three days after, it 
was said of rage and mortification. Philip had been 
swift ; Napoleon was not quicker in his movements. 
The Templars had supplied Boniface with money. 
They had not time to help him with arms. Boniface's 
successor, Benedict the Tenth, made peace on Philip's 
own terms. The French clergy were made to give him 
al] that he wanted. The Templars appealed to their 
privileges ; bat they, too, had to submit under protest. 
The King was master of the situation, and meant to 
make the most of his victory. Benedict the Tenth 
reigned only for a year. The majority in the College of 
Cardinals was French. They chose after him the 
French Archbishop of Bordeaux, who was to reside in 
France, and could be made to do the King's bidding. 
Archbishop Bertrand became Pope at the beginning of 
1305, under the name of Clement the Fifth. 

So much for the position, which I have merely 
sketched in outline. 

The Templars had no suspicion of their danger, and 
that no hint of it reached them is a proof how few 
friends they could have had. In outward respect they 
stood high as ever. No scandal had been breathed 
against them. Their churches were the admiration of 
Europe. Faithful as they were to their salt, they had 



THE TEMPLARS. 283 

never so much as dreamed that the master whom they 
had served so loyally could betray them. What could 
they have to fear ? And yet it got abroad somehow 
that the King would be well pleased if evidence could 
be found of the Templars' misconduct, and when 
evidence is wanted, especially if it will be well paid 
for, sooner or later it will be forthcoming. 

In the Temple, as in other bodies, there were black 
sheep. Knights or servants of the Order now and then 
broke the rules, and had to be punished, and, if incor- 
rigible, to be expelled. At the accession of Clement 
the Fifth there were two knights thus degraded, in 
prison, at Toulouse ; one of them, Esquin von Florian, 
who had been prior of Montfaucon, and the other with 
the unusual name of Noffodei. These men, after their 
expulsion, had been engaged in some conspiracy at 
Paris, and were under sentence of death. They in- 
formed the governor of the gaol that they could possess 
the King of a secret which would be worth another 
realm to him, and that if their lives were spared they 
would reveal it. They were sent up to the court; 
Philip examined them himself, and they made the 
following singular statement : — 

1. Every Templar on his admission to the Order 
swore to defend it for his life long, in all causes, just or 
unjust, without exception. 

2. The chiefs of the Order corresponded with the 
Saracens, and were more like Mahometans than Chris- 
tians. The Novices were required to spit upon the 
cross, and trample on it, and deny Christ. 



284 THE TEMPLARS. 

3. Any one suspected of intending to betray the 
secrets of the Order was murdered and secretly buried. 

4. The Templars despised the sacraments. They 
worshipped idols, and were heretics. 

5. They committed unnatural crimes. Their houses 
were nests of vice and profligacy. 

6. They betrayed the Holy Land, and lived without 
fear of God. 

These were the chief articles of a long list. There 
were many others; such as incest, worship of the devil 
under various forms, &c. &c. 

It is certainly strange that if the Templars were so 
horribly -depraved no whisper of their enormities should 
hitherto have gone abroad. It is strange that, as the 
secrets of the Order were necessarily known to all its 
members, they should have ventured to expel mis- 
demeanants who could so easily betray them. If they 
killed every one that they suspected of letting out their 
mysteries, it is strange that they should have allowed 
the knights to confess to secular priests outside the 
Order, as it is certain that in the absence of their own 
chaplains they habitually did. 

The King took down the depositions, and, without 
going into the particulars of them, wrote privately to 
the Pope. On August 24, 1305 — the dates are impor- 
tant — the Pope replied that it was a singular story. 
The King's letter was so positive, however, and the 
persons who had brought the letter to him were so 
positive also, that he supposed the charges must be 
true. It seemed, however, that some rumour of the 



THE TEMPLARS. 285 

matter had by this time reached the Templars them- 
selves. The Pope added that the Grand Master and 
the preceptors had also written to him, alluding to the 
accusations, and begging him to examine into them. 
This he would do, and would inform the Kino- of the 
result. 

The inquiry so conducted would have been fair 
enough, but for some reason it did not suit Philip's 
purpose. He sent the Pope the depositions themselves. 
The Pope made no further move. The whole matter 
was allowed to drop for a year; and the next thing 
which we find is a confidential and affectionate letter 
from the Pope to the Grand Master, who was in Cyprus, 
written in the following summer. Not a word was 
said by him about the accusations. The Pope seemed 
to have forgotten them. He merely told the Grand 
Master that he wished to consult him about various 
subjects of great consequence — the condition of the 
East, the prospects of the Crusades, and the general 
state of Christendom. He therefore begged De Molay 
to come to him in France as soon as he could, and to 
bring with him such of the knights as he had most 
dependence on. \ 

De Molay clearly had no suspicion. He was under 
the impression that the headquarters of the Templars 
were to be transferred from Cyprus to France. Thev 
had a grand palace in Paris. The site of it still bears 
the old name, and the palace itself was the prison of 
the royal family in the Revolution. Thither came De 
Molay, bringing with him the chest, or chests, of the 



286 THE TEMPLARS. 

Order — twelve mules' load of gold and silver. The 
King received him with the proper courtesies. There 
was no sign of displeasure. The treasure was put 
away in the Templars' vaults. The Pope was at 
Poitiers. De Molay and the preceptors went to him, 
and had a long friendly conversation with him. The 
projected union of the military Orders was certainly 
the subject of part of it, and De Molay was less cordial 
on the subject than perhaps Clement wished. This 
was at the end of 1306, nearly two years after the 
two knights had told their story. All was outwardly 
smooth. : The winter went by. In the spring there 
were once more rumours in the air which made 
De Molay uneasy. In April, 1307, he went again 
to the Pope, taking the four French preceptors with 
him, and spoke very earnestly about it. The Pope 
listened with apparent satisfaction, and dismissed 
them as if perfectly assured that the accusations were 
baseless. 

Again one asks, Was all this treachery ? — was it a 
plan agreed upon between the Pope and the King to 
put the Templars off their guard, to seize the treasure, 
and get into their power the persons of the Grand 
Master and the leading knights ? That certainly was 
the effect. Such a plot, supposing it real, might be 
defended if the charges against the Templars were true. 
They were a formidable body. Had they been alarmed, 
and had their chief been at large, they could perhaps 
have set the King at defiance. At least they could 
not have been suppressed without desperate bloodshed. 



THE TEMPLARS. 287 

But all turns on the truth of the charges, or on the 
King's sincere belief in them. 

Even kings and popes are seldom deliberately and 
consciously wicked. But, like other men, they have a 
power of convincing themselves of what they wish to 
believe. The Pope was afraid of Philip, and wished 
to please him. The Templars had really become an 
anomaly. They were a danger to the State. Philip 
might legitimately wish to bring the Order to an end. 
From a wish to end them to a conviction of their 
crimes the step would be short in a politic ruler's mind. 
Politics are a corrupting trade. 

Any way, the Templars were lulled into absolute 
security. They were spread all over France in their 
various houses. At the beginning of October this same 
year, 1307, the King sent a secret instruction round 
the provinces for their universal and simultaneous 
arrest. Not a whisper was allowed to reach them. 
They had lived in friendless and haughty isolation. 
They had relied on the Pope, and the Pope had failed 
them. The only support which never fails — some 
legitimate place among the useful agencies of the time 
— this was wanting. 



III. 



At the break of day on October 1 3, 1 307, the Templars 
were surprised in their beds, carried off to the provincial 
prisons of the different bishops and flung into dungeons* 



288 THE TEMPLARS. 

More willing gaolers they could not have had. They 
had long defied the bishops, and the bishops' turn was 
come. They took on themselves the responsibility oi' 
the King's action. Such prelates as were in Paris, with 
the heads of the University and the abbots and priors 
of the religious houses, assembled two days after in the 
Templars' Hall. They drew up an Act of Accusation, 
in which the knights were described as ravening wolves, 
idolaters, perjurers, and guilty of the vilest crimes. 
They asserted, to meet the inevitable incredulity, that 
the Grand Master and the preceptors had confessed 
their guilt. The Templars belonged to Europe — not 
to France alone. Philip sent circulars to Edward 
the Second of England, to Germany, to the Kings of 
Aragon, Portugal, and Castile, telling his story, and 
inviting them to follow his example. His letter was 
read in England with astonishment. A great council 
was called at Westminster. Edward with his peers 
and prelates replied that the charges were incredible. 
The Templars were men of unstained honour. The 
Pope must examine into the matter. He would take 
no action till the Pope had decided. He sent his own 
protest to his brother princes. 

The Pope — the poor, infallible Pope — was in straits; 
he had not been consulted before the arrest ; he could 
not refuse an inquiry ; yet, perhaps, he knew too well 
how an honest inquiry would terminate. The King 
and the bishops had begun the work, and they had no 
choice but to go through with it. Before the Pope 
could proceed the bishops might prepare their case. It 



THE TEMPLARS. 289 

was winter. The Templars had been flung into cold, 
damp dungeons, ill-fed and ill-clothed. In the first 
month they had begun to die of mere hardship. They 
were informed of the charges against them ; they were 
told that denial was useless, that the Grand Master and 
preceptors had confessed, and wished them all to 
confess. They were promised rewards and liberty if 
they obeyed ; imprisonment and torture if they were 
obstinate. After some weeks of this, to bring them into 
a proper frame of mind, the bishops issued commissions 
to examine them. 

And I must now beg you to attend. What I am 
about to tell you is strict fact ; as well authenticated as 
any historical facts can be. Belief, or the credulity of 
nobleness, had created the Templars. Belief, the ugly 
side of it, the credulity of hatred, was now to destroy 
them. Universal confession would alone satisfy the 
world's suspicions, and confession the King and his 
prelates were resolved to have. Wasted with hunger 
and cold, the knights were brought one by one before 
the bishops' judges. The depositions of the two 
approvers were formed into interrogatories. Did the 
knights, on their admission to the Order, spit on the 
cross? Did they deny Christ? Did they receive a 
dispensation to commit unnatural offences ? Did 
they worship idols ? A paper was read to them pro- 
fessing to be the Grand Master's confession; and to 
these questions they were required to answer yes 
or no. A few said yes, and were rewarded and dis- 
missed. By far the greater number said that the 



290 THE TEMPLARS. 

charges were lies; they said they did not believe that 
the Grand Master had confessed ; if he had he had 
lied in his throat. And now what happened to the 
men who answered thus ? They were stripped naked, 
their hands were tied behind their backs ; a rope was 
fastened to their wrists, the other end of which was 
slung over a beam, and they were dragged up and down 
till they were senseless, or till they acknowledged what 
the bishops wanted. If this failed, their feet were 
fixed in a frame like the old English stocks, rubbed 
with oil, and held to the fire till the toes, or even the 
feet themselves, dropped off. Or the iron boot was 
used, or the thumb-screws, or another unnameable and 
indescribably painful devilry. Thirty-six of them died 
under these tortures in Paris alone. The rest so treated 
said anything which the bishops required. They pro- 
tested afterwards that their confessions, as they were 
called, had been wrung out of them by pain only. They 
were returned to their dungeons, to be examined again 
when the Pope pleased. But having confessed to 
heresy, they were told that, if they withdrew their con- 
fessions afterwards, they would be treated as relapsed 
heretics, and would be burnt at the stake. Such was 
then the Church's law ; and it was no idle threat. 

I am not telling you a romance. These scenes did 
actually occur all over France; and it was by this 
means that the evidence was got together under which 
the Templars were condemned. But we are only at 
the first stage of the story. 

The confessions were published to the world, and 



THE TEMPLARS. 291 

the world, not knowing how they had been obtained, 
supposed that they must be true. The Pope knew 
better ; he remonstrated ; he said that the Templars 
were not subject to the bishops, who were going beyond 
their power. The King accused him of trying to shield 
the Templars' guilt; the bishops, he said, were doing 
nothing but their duty, and the Faculty of Theology at 
Paris declared that no privilege could shelter heresy. 
The conduct of the Grand Master and the four pre- 
ceptors is a mystery. They were evidently bewildered, 
disheartened, shocked, and terrified, and confessions 
alleged to have been made by them were certainly 
taken down and published. It appears, also, that in 
January, 1308, three months after the arrest, they were 
brought before the Pope, and they were alleged to have 
confessed again on this occasion, and to have received 
absolution from him. But the Pope did not confirm 
this allegation, and was still incredulous. The other 
Powers of Christendom insisted on a fuller inquiry. 
The formal sanction of the Papacy was required before 
the Order could be suppressed, and even Clement, 
pliable as he was, could not proceed on the evidence 
before him. In the summer, six months later, seventy- 
two Templars— seventy-two only of the thousands still 
surviving in France — were found willing to appear 
before him and give the required answers to the inter- 
rogatories. These seventy-two did say that they had 
abjured Christ, had spit on the cross, had worshipped 
idols, and the rest of it. They were asked why they 
had at first denied these things ? They said that they 



2Q2 THE TEMPLARS. 

had forgotten, but had since remembered. Seventy- 
two, after all that bribes and tortures and threats 
could do, were not enough. The Pope was answerable 
to Christendom. The French bishops themselves were 
on their trial before the rest of the world ; the sentence 
could not rest on their word alone. The Pope found 
himself obliged to appoint an independent commission, 
when the knights could be heard in their own defence 
with an appearance of freedom. A cardinal or two, an 
archbishop, and two or three papal lawyers, were 
formed into a court which was to sit in Paris. All 
precautions were alleged to be taken that the 
Templars should have a fair hearing if they wished 
it, without fear or prejudice. Every prisoner who 
would say that he was ready to defend the Order was 
to be brought to Paris to be heard. Notice of the 
appointment of the commission was sent round to all 
the courts of Europe. 

If Philip, if the bishops really believed in the 
Templars' guilt they ought to have welcomed the 
Pope's action. They had been cruel, but if they could 
prove their case their rough handling would not be 
judged severely. They were in no haste, however. The 
commission was appointed in August, 1308. It did not 
sit for another year. The Templars were now dying 
by hundreds. Their death-bed declarations were all 
protests of innocence. The survivors demanded in vain 
that these declarations should be made public. When 
they learnt that they were to be heard before represent- 
atives of the Pope their hopes revived, and more than 



THE TEMPLARS. 293 

a thousand at once gave their names as ready to appear 
in the defence. 

In August, 1309, the court was opened. It sat 
in the Convent of St. Genevieve. Citations were 
issued, but no one appeared. The Templars had been 
brought up to Paris, but they had been told on the 
way that if they retracted their confessions the Pope 
intended to burn them as relapsed; and, after the 
treatment which they had met with, anything seemed 
possible. They claimed to be heard by counsel. This 
was refused. The court adjourned till November 22, 
when some twenty of the knights were brought in and 
were asked if they were ready with a defence. They 
said that they were illiterate soldiers; they knew 
nothing of law pleading. If they might have their 
liberty with arms and horses they would meet their 
accusers in the field. That was all that they could do. 

It was necessary to begin with the Grand Master. 
On November 26, De Molay himself was introduced 
into the court. He was an old man, battered by a life 
of fighting, and worn by hard treatment in prison. 
Being asked what he had to say, he complained of the 
refusal of counsel. He claimed for himself and the 
Order to be heard before a mixed court of lay peers and 
prelates. To such a judgment he said that they were 
willing to submit. They protested against a tribunal 
composed only of Churchmen. 

Unfortunately for themselves the Templars were a 
religious Order, and the Church alone could try them. 
The commission under which the court was constituted 



294 THE TEMPLARS. 

was read over. It was there stated that the Grand 
Master had made a full confession of the Order's guilt ; 
and from his behaviour it might have been thought 
that he was hearing of this extraordinary assertion for 
the first time. We have the account of the proceedings 
exactly as they were taken down by the secretary. He 
crossed himself thrice. ' Videbatur se esse valde stupe- 
factum.' He seemed entirely stupefied. When he 
found his voice he said that if the commissioners had 
not been priests he would have known how to answer 
them. They were not there, they replied, to accept 
challenges. He said he was aware of that, but he 
wished to God that there was the same justice in 
France as there was among the Turks and Saracens, 
where a false witness was cut to pieces. No confession 
was produced to which he had attached his hand, and 
of other evidence there was none. The King's chan- 
cellor read a passage from a chronicle to the effect that 
Saladin, a hundred and twenty years before, had called 
the Templars a set of villains. Again De Molay 
appeared stupefied — as well he might. He claimed 
privilege, and demanded to be heard by the Pope in 
person. 

The Preceptor of Payens then appeared. He 
admitted that he had confessed with many of his 
brethren, but he protested that their confessions were 
false. They had been handed over to a set of men, 
some of whom had been expelled from the Order for 
infamous crimes. They had been tortured, and many 
of them had died on the rack. He for himself had had 



THE TEMPLARS. 295 

his hands crushed till the blood ran from his nails. He 
had been flung into a well and left lying there ; he had 
been for two years in a dungeon. He could have borne 
to be killed — to be roasted, to be boiled — anything 
which would be over in a moderate time, but such 
prolonged agonies were beyond human strength. If he 
was treated so again he would deny all that he was 
then saying, and renew his confession. He was 
remitted to custody, and the commissioners cautioned 
the gaoler not to deal hardly with him for what he had 
said. The caution was necessary. Many of the knights 
were still afraid to speak, or would say nothing except 
that they had been tortured, and would speak if they 
were set free. As long as they were kept prisoners 
they dared not. The commissioners, to encourage them, 
sent out a warning to the bishops, and again assured 
the knights of protection. The court, they said, wanted 
nothing but the truth. The knights might tell it 
freely; no harm should happen to them. 

This gave them courage. Six hundred of them now 
came forward, one after the other, and told the secrets 
of their prisons, with the infernal cruelties which they 
had suffered there. A list was produced of those who 
had died. One very curious letter was read which had 
been written by a high official and sent to a party of 
Templars at Sens. It was to the effect that the Bishop 
of Orleans was coming to reconcile them. They were 
advised to make submission, and in that case were 
promised all kindness; but they were to understand 
that the Pope had distinctly ordered that those who 



296 THE TEMPLARS. 

retracted their confessions should be burnt. The official 
in question was called in. He said that he did not 
think that he could have written such a letter ; the seal 
was his, but it might have been written by his clerk. 

One prisoner was carried into the court, unable to 
stand. His feet had been held to the fire until they 
had been destroyed. 

The evidence was still utterly inconsistent. Priests 
came forward, who said they had habitually heard 
Templars' confessions, yet had heard nothing of the 
alleged enormities. Others, on the other hand, ad- 
hered to the story, telling many curious details — how 
Templars had told them that they had been required 
to spit on the cross, how they had been frightened and 
refused, but had at last consented — c non corde sed ore ' 
— not with their hearts, but with their lips. But the 
great majority were still resolute in their denials. At 
last the whole six hundred made a common affirmation 
that every one of these Articles named in the Pope's 
Bull was a lie — the religion of the Templars was pure 
and immaculate, and so had always been, and whoever 
said to the contrary was an infidel and a heretic. This 
they were ready to maintain in all lawful ways, but 
they prayed to be released and be heard, if not before 
a mixed tribunal, then before a General Council. Those 
w ho had confessed had lied ; but they had lied under 
torture themselves, or terrified by the tortures which 
they witnessed. Some might have been bribed, which 
they said was public and notorious; the wonder was 
that any should have dared to tell the truth. As a 






THE TEMPLARS. 297 

refinement of cruelty, the bishops had refused the 
sacraments to the dying. 

The commissioners were now at a loss. Individuals 
might be worked upon by fear and hope to repeat their 
confessions, but the great body of the Order were con- 
sistent in their protest. The commissioners said that 
they could not hear them all. They had asked for 
counsel ; let them appoint proctors who could speak for 
them. This seemed fair; but the unfortunate men 
were afraid of trusting themselves to proctors. Proctors 
being few, might be tempted or frightened into betray- 
ing them. They still trusted the Pope. They had 
been invited to speak, and they had been promised 
protection. The members of the court had some kind 
of conscience, and it began to seem likely that the case 
might not end as the King and the bishops required. 
They could not afford to let it go forth to the world 
that the Templars were innocent after all and had been 
brutally and barbarously treated without sufficient 
cause; public opinion did not go for much in those 
days, but they were at the bar of all Europe. 

We need not assume that they themselves did not 
believe in the Templars' guilt ; men have a wonderful 
power of making themselves believe what they wish to 
believe. If the Templars had been formidable before 
the attack on them was begun, they would be doubly 
formidable if they came out of their trial clean as their 
own white robes ; it was necessary to stop these pleas 
of innocence, and the French prelates were equal to the 
occasion. 



298 THE TEMPLARS. 

While the Pope's commissioners were sitting at St. 
Genevieve the Archbishop of Sens opened a provincial 
court of his own in another part of Paris. The list of 
knights was brought before him who had given their 
names as intending to retract their confessions. On 
May 10, 1 3 10, four of the Templars demanded audience 
of the Papal judges. They said that the knights had 
been invited by the Pope to defend the Order; they 
had been told to speak the truth without fear, and had 
been promised that no harm should happen to them. 
They now learnt that in consequence of what they had 
said, on the very next day a great number were to be 
put on their trial before the Archbishop of Sens as 
relapsed heretics. They said truly, that if this was 
permitted, it would make the inquiry a farce — it would 
stain irreparably the honour of the Holy See. They 
entreated the commissioners to interpose and prevent 
the Archbishop from proceeding. 

The commissioners professed to be sorry — they 
could hardly do less ; but they said that the Archbishop 
was not under their jurisdiction. They themselves 
represented the Holy See ; the bishops had an in- 
dependent authority ; they had no power over the 
bishops nor the bishops over them. They did promise, 
however, to think the matter over and see if anything 
could be done. 

The Archbishop did not allow them time for much 
thinking ; he was a sturdy prelate a,nd had the courage 
of his office. Two days after, on the morning of the 
1 2th, just as the commissioners were going to chapel 



THE TEMPLARS. 299 

(they were particular about all these things it seems), 
word was brought them that fifty-four of the knights 
who had applied to be heard before them had been 
tried and sentenced and were to be burnt at the stake 
that very afternoon. This time the commissioners were 
really disturbed. They were not prepared for such 
prompt action — their own dignity, the Holy Father's 
dignity was compromised. They sent in haste to the 
Archbishop, to beg him at least to postpone the execu- 
tion; every Templar who had died hitherto had declared 
the Order innocent, and these would do the same. If 
witnesses were invited to speak, and were then burnt 
for speaking, they would have to close their court. 
Already the very report of the Archbishop's intentions 
had so terrified the knights that some of them had gone 
out of their minds. 

The Archbishop was made of tougher stuff — - 
Fouquier Tinville and the Revolutionary tribunal were 
not more resolute. To terrify the knights into silence 
was precisely what he intended. Accordingly that 
same afternoon, as he had ordered, those fifty-four 'poor 
brothers in Christ/ whose real fault had been that they 
were too faithful to the Father of Christendom, were 
carried out to the Place St. Antoine, near where the 
Bastille stood, and were there roasted to death. They 
bore their fate like men. Every one of them, torn and 
racked as they had been, declared with his last breath 
that, so far as he knew, the accusations against the 
Order were groundless and wilful slanders. Half-a- 
dozen more were burnt a day or two after to deepen 



3oo THE TEMPLARS. 

the effect. The Archbishop clearly was not afraid of 
man or devil. Some say a sensitive conscience is a 
sign of a weak character. No one can accuse the Arch- 
bishop of Sens of having a weak character ; he knew 
what he was doing and what would come of it. 

I will read you a declaration made the next day 
before the Pope's commissioners by Sir Amaric de 
Villiers, one of the prisoners. He said that he was 
fifty years old and had been a brother of the Order for 
twenty. The clerk of the court read over the list of 
crimes with which the Order was charged. He turned 
pale ; he struck his breast ; he raised his hand to the 
altar; he dropped on his knees. On peril of his soul, 
he said, on peril of all the punishments denounced on 
perjury, praying that if he was not speaking truth the 
ground might open and he might go down quick into 
hell, those charges were all false. He allowed that he 
had confessed on the rack. He had been taken to St. 
Antoine the evening before. He had seen his fifty-four 
brethren brought in carts and thrown into the flames. 
He had been in such fear that he doubted if he himself 
could endure to be so handled. With such an end 
before him, he might say if he was brought again before 
the bishops, and they required it of him, that he had 
not only denied his Lord, but had murdered him. He 
implored the judges to keep to themselves what he was 
then saying. If the Archbishop got hold of it, he would 
be burnt like the rest. 

The terror had cut deep. The Pope's commissioners 
had neither the courage to adopt the Archbishop's 



THE TEMPLARS. 301 

methods nor to repudiate and disown them. They 
sent to him to say that they must suspend their sit- 
tings. He answered scornfully that they might do as 
they pleased. He and his suffragans had met to finish 
the process against the Templars, and they intended to 
do it. A few more victims were sacrificed. The rest 
of the knights, who had offered to speak before the 
commissioners, were naturally silent. The commis- 
sioners could not help them. They withdrew their 
defence, and the commission was adjourned till the 
following November. 

The tragic story was now winding up. When 
November came the court sate again, reduced in 
number and reduced to a form. The duty of it thence- 
forward was simply to hear such of the Order as had 
been broken into submission, and were willino- to 
repeat the story which had been thrust into their 
mouths, with such details as imagination or reality 
could add to it. I do not suppose that the accusations 
were absolutely without foundation. Very often the 
witnesses seemed to be relating things which they 
really remembered. The Templars were a secret 
society, and secret societies have often forms of initia- 
tion which once had a meaning, with an affectation of 
solemnity and mysticism. I am not a Freemason. 
Many of you no doubt are. I have heard that the 
ceremonies of that Order, though perfectly innocent, are 
of a kind which malice or ignorance might misinterpret, 
if there was an object in bringing the Freemasons into 
disrepute. You know best if that is so. Somewhere 



302 THE TEMPLARS. 

abroad I was myself once admitted into a mysterious 
brotherhood. I was sworn to secrecy, and therefore I 
can tell you little about it. I was led through a narrow 
passage into a vast darkened hall, where some hundred 
dim, half-seen figures were sitting in silence. I was 
taken to a table in the middle with a single candle on 
it. There — but my revelations must end. I could 
have believed myself before the famous Vehm Gericht. 
The practices alleged against the Templars as crimes 
were in fact most of them innocent. They were 
accused of worshipping a skull ; some said it had jewels 
in its eyes, some that it had none. An accidental 
question brought out that it was a relic of an Eastern 
saint, such as any Catholic might treat with reverence. 
The officers of the Order were accused of hearing con- 
fessions and giving priestly absolution, and this was a 
deadly offence. By the rules of the Order the lay 
superiors were directed to hear confessions and inflict 
penance, but were forbidden to absolve. Confusion 
might easily have arisen. 

The Novices were said to receive licenses to commit 
an abominable sin, yet there was scarcely a single knight 
who could be brought to say that he had even heard of 
such a sin being committed. 

The spitting on the cross and the denial of Christ 
are less easy to explain. Thousands of the knights 
absolutely denied that such outrages were ever seen or 
heard of, yet a great many did with considerable con- 
sistency describe a singular ceremony of that kind. It 
has been supposed that the Templars by their long 



THE TEMPLARS. 303 

residence in Syria had ceased to be Christians, and had 
adopted Eastern heresies, that they were Gnostics, 
Manichees, or I know not what. This is a guess, and 
I do not think a likely one. They were mere soldiers. 
They were never a learned Order. They left no books 
behind them, or writings of any kind. The services in 
the Templars' churches were conducted with peculiar 
propriety. Every witness declared that the very crosses 
which they said had been spit upon were treated after- 
wards with the deepest reverence. Nor was there 
really any attempt at concealment. Those who had 
been frightened at the forms of initiation were told to 
go and confess to secular priests in the neighbourhood. 
Several instances of such confessions were produced. 
The confessors sometimes had treated what they heard 
as of no consequence. They had satisfied their peni- 
tents' consciences, not always in the same way. One 
said that the spitting on the cross was meant as a trial 
of constancy. The Saracens if they were taken prisoners 
would require them to deny Christ or be killed. The 
officers of the Order wanted to see how they would abide 
the test. Another said it was a trial of obedience. 
The Novice swore to obey his superiors in all things 
without exception. The spitting on the cross may have 
been the severest trial which could be imagined. In no 
instances at all was it ever suggested that the forms of 
initiation pointed to any real impiety. 

So strange a tale is not likely to have rested upon 
nothing. I suppose the custom may have varied in 
different houses. Men are men, and may not have been 



304 THE TEMPLARS. 

uniformly wise. But the more one reads the evidence 
the plainer it becomes that the confessions, and even 
the terms of them, were arranged beforehand. The 
witnesses produced after the commission met again told 
one tale. If they ever varied from it they were brought 
swiftly back into harmony. Sir John de Pollencourt 
gave the stereotyped answer. He had spat on the 
cross. He had done this and that ; but we read in the 
Record : The commissioners, seeing him pale and terri- 
fied, bade him for his soul's welfare speak the truth, 
whatever it might be. He need not fear. They would 
tell no one what he might say. He hesitated ; then, on 
his oath,- he declared that he had spoken falsely. He 
had not denied Christ. He had not spat on the cross. 
He had not received license to sin. He had confessed 
before the bishops in fear of death, and because his 
fellow-prisoners said that they would be killed unless 
they admitted what the bishops required. 

The commissioners were not as secret as they pro- 
mised to be. Sir John de Pollencourt was made to 
know behind the scenes what would happen to him if 
he was not submissive. Accordingly, four days after, 
the same witness was brought in again, withdrew his 
denial and again confessed. It is easy to see what had 
happened in the interval. 

So handled, the rest of the process went on smoothly. 
Parties of knights who had escaped the torture-cham- 
bers of the bishops and thus had not been forced into 
confession continued to speak out. On one occasion 
twenty or thirty appeared in a body, and pointed to the 



THE TEMPLARS. 305 

red crosses broidered on their clothes. That cross, they 
said, signified that they would shed their blood for their 
Redeemer. If, as they were told, their Grand Master 
had confessed that they had denied Christ, or if any of 
their brethren had confessed it, they had lied in their 
throats, to the peril of their own souls. But the mass 
of the knights had by this time abandoned their cause 
as hopeless. By the end of nine months a sufficient 
number of so-called confessions had been repeated 
before the commissioners to satisfy the Pope's scruples. 
The commissioners were themselves only too eager to 
wind up the scandalous inquiry. Not so much as an 
effort had been made to discover the real truth. The 
result was a foregone conclusion, and every utterance 
which could interfere with it had been stifled by cord 
or fire. The report was sent to Clement. A council of 
bishops was called together. It was laid before them 
and accepted as conclusive. The Order of the Templars 
was pronounced to have disgraced itself, and was sup- 
pressed. The sinning knights were scattered about the 
world — some went back to the world — some became 
Benedictines or Cistercians. Some gave their swords 
and services to secular princes, having had enough of 
the Church. Some disappeared into their families. 
Their estates the Pope had insisted must be reserved 
to the Church, and were nominally given to the 
Knights Hospitallers. But the King extorted such an 
enormous fine from them that the Hospitallers gained 
little by their rivals' overthrow. 

The Grand Master's end remains to be told. The 

x 



306 THE TEMPLARS. 

confessions which he and three of the head preceptors 
were alleged to have made are extant, and resembled 
the rest, but we have seen how he behaved when the 
confession attributed to himself was read over to him 
before the commissioners. He had appealed to the 
Pope, but without effect, and had been left with the 
three preceptors in prison. When the edict for the 
suppression was issued, and the other knights were 
dismissed, De Molay and his companions were sentenced 
to perpetual confinement. But the world was after all 
less satisfied of the Templars' guilt than Philip could 
have wished, and in some way or other it was necessary 
to convince the public that the Grand Master's confession 
was genuine. 

The bull of suppression was to be read aloud to the 
people of Paris. It was brought up with special solem- 
nity by a bishop and a cardinal, and De Molay and the 
others were to be publicly shown upon a stage on the 
occasion. On March 18, 13 14, a platform had been 
erected in one of the squares, with chairs of state for 
the cardinal, the Archbishop of Sens, and other dis- 
tinguished persons. The Grand Master and his com- 
rades were produced and were placed where the world 
could see them. The cardinal rose to read the sentence. 
When he came to the list of enormities of which, as the 
bull alleged, the Templars had been found guilty, and 
when the Grand Master heard it stated that he had 
himself admitted the charges to be true, he rose up, and 
in a loud voice which every one could hear, he cried out 
that it was false. 



THE TEMPLARS. 307 

Philip himself was not present, but he was in Paris 
and not far off. Word was brought him of the Grand 
Master's contumacy. Not troubling himself with forms 
of law, he ordered that the Grand Master should be 
instantly burnt, and his provincials along with him, 
unless they saved themselves by submission. Two of 
them, Sir Hugh von Peyraud and Geoffrey de Gonville, 
gave in and were sent back to their dungeons. De 
Molay and the third were carried directly to the island 
in the Seine, and were burnt the same evening in the 
light of the setting sun. 

In his end, like Samson, De Molay pulled down the 
fabric of the prosecution. There was -thenceforward a 
universal conviction that the Templars had been unjustly 
dealt with. The popular feeling shaped itself into a 
tradition (possibly it was a real fact), that as the flames 
were choking him, the last Grand Master summoned 
the Pope and the King to meet him before the tribunal 
of God. Clement died in agony a few weeks after. A 
little later Philip the Beautiful was flung by a vicious 
horse, and he too went to his account. 

A very few words will tell now how the Templars 
fared in the rest of Europe. There was no real belief in 
their guilt ; but their estates had been given to them 
for a purpose which no longer existed. They were rich, 
and they had nothing to do. They were an anachron- 
ism and a danger. When the Pope agreed to their 
suppression, there was no motive to resist the Pope's 
decision ; and they did not attempt to resist it them- 
selves. Nothing is more remarkable in the whole story 



3 o8 THE TEMPLARS. 

than the almost universal acquiescence of an armed 
and disciplined body of men in the Pope's judgment. 
They had been trained to obedience. The Pope had 
been their sovereign. The Pope wished that they 
should cease to exist ; and they fell to pieces without a 
word, unless it were to protest their innocence of the 
crimes of which they were accused. 

In England Philip's charges had at first been 
received with resentful incredulity, but neither king, nor 
peers, nor Church had any motive to maintain the 
Templars after the Pope had spoken. For form's sake 
there was an investigation on the lines of the French 
interrogatories, but there was no torture or cruelty. 
They knew that they were to go, and that they would 
be dealt with generously. The process was a curious 
one. As a body the English Templars stated that the 
forms of admission to the Order were, as far as they 
knew, uniform. What was done in one house was done 
in all. If any of the brethren liked to depose to this or 
that ceremony being observed they would not contra- 
dict them, and thus the difficulty was got over. A 
certain number of knights were ready to give the 
necessary evidence. Some hundreds of outside persons, 
chiefly monks or secular priests, deposed to popular 
rumours, conversations, and suchlike, names not given ; a 
certain person heard another person say this and that. 
What was got at in this way was often not dreadful. A 
preceptor in Lincolnshire had been heard to maintain 
that 'men died as animals died'; therefore, it might 
be inferred that he did not believe in immortality. 



THE TEMPLARS. 309 

Templars sometimes had crosses worked into their 
drawers; therefore they were in the habit of sitting 
upon the cross. The English evidence threw light 
often on the manners of the age, but I cannot go into 
that, I have tried your patience too long already, I 
will, therefore, sum up briefly. 

When all is said the story is a strange one, and I 
cannot pretend to leave it clear of doubt. But no 
lawyer, no sensible man, can accept as conclusive evidence 
mere answers to interrogatories extorted by torture and 
the threat of death. A single denial made under such 
circumstances is worth a thousand assents dragged out 
by rack and gibbet. If the Order had really been as 
guilty as was pretended, some of the knights at least 
would have confessed on their death-beds. Not one 
such confession was ever produced, while the dying 
protestations of innocence were all suppressed. The 
King and the Inquisitors force us into incredulity by 
their own unscrupulous ferocity. It is likely enough 
that, like other Orders, the Templars had ceremonies, 
perhaps not very wise, intended to impress the imagin- 
ation, but that those ceremonies were intentionally 
un-Christian or diabolical, I conceive to be entirely 
unproved. They fell partly because they were rich, 
partly for political reasons, which, for all I know, may 
have been good and sound ; but the act of accusation 
I regard as a libel invented to justify the arbitrary 
destruction of a body which, if not loved, was at least 
admired for its services to Christendom. 

It remains only to emphasise the moral that 



3 ro THE TEMPLARS. 

institutions can only be kept alive while they answer 
the end for which they were created. Nature will not 
tolerate them longer, and in one way or another shakes 
them down. The Templars had come into existence to 
no-lit the infidels in Palestine. Palestine was abandoned 
to the infidels, and the Templars were needed no longer. 
They were outwardly strong as ever, brave, organised, 
and in character unblemished, but the purpose of them 
being gone, they were swept away by a hurricane. So 
it is with all human organisations. They grow out of 
man's necessities, and are mortal as men are. Empires, 
monarchies, aristocracies, guilds, orders, societies, reli- 
gious creeds, rise in the same way, and in the same way 
disappear when they stand in the way of other things. 

But mankind are mean creatures. When they 
destroy these creations of theirs they paint them in the 
blackest colours to excuse their own violence. The 
black colours in which Philip the Beautiful and his 
bishops were pleased to paint the Templars will, per- 
haps, if history cares to trouble itself about the matter, 
be found to attach rather to the extraordinary men 
calling themselves successors of the Apostles who racked 
and roasted them. 

You in Scotland found no great reason to love 
bishops, and the history of the Templars does not 
increase our affection for them. 



THE NORWAY FJORDS. 



ON June 30, 1 88 1, we sailed from Southampton 
Water in the steam yacht ' Severn ' to spend ten 
weeks in the Norway Fjords — Fjords or Friths, for the 
word is the same. The Scandinavian children of the 
sea carried their favourite names with them. Frith is 
Fjord; our Cumberland Scale Force would be called 
Scale Foss between the North Cape and the Baltic. 
The yacht was spacious ; over 300 tons. Cabins, equip- 
ments, engines, captain, steward, crew the best of their 
kind. Our party was small ; only four in all. My 

friend, whose guest I was, and whom I shall call D -, 

two ladies, and myself. D had furnished himself 

with such knowledge as was attainable in London, for 
the scenes which we were to explore. He had studied 
Norse. He could speak it: he could understand and 
be understood. He was a sportsman, but a sportsman 
only as subsidiary to more rational occupations. He 
was going to Norway to catch salmonidse : not, however, 
to catch them only, but to study the varieties of that 
most complicated order of fish. He was going also 
to geologise and to botanise, to examine rocks and 



3 i2 THE NORWAY FJORDS. 

rivers and glaciers and flowers; while all of us were 
meaning to acquaint ourselves as far as we could 
with the human specimens still to be found in the 
crater of the old volcano from which those shiploads of 
murdering 'Danes' poured out ten centuries ago to 
change the face of Europe. 

And to see Norway, the real Norway, within moder- 
ate compass of time is possible only with such means as 
a steam-yacht provides. There are great lines of road 
in Norway along the practicable routes, but very few 
are practicable ; nine-tenths of the country, and the 
most interesting parts, are so walled off by mountains, 
are so intrenched among the fjords, as to. be for ever 
unapproachable by land, while the water highways 
lead everywhere — magnificent canals, fashioned by the 
elemental forces, who can say how or when ? 

From the west coast there run inland with a general 
easterly direction ten or twelve main channels of sea, 
penetrating from fifty to a hundred miles into the very 
heart of the Northern Peninsula. They are of vast 
depth, and from half a mile to two miles broad. The 
mountains rise on both sides sheer from the water's 
edge ; the lower ranges densely timbered with pine and 
birch and alder. Above these belts of forest soar 
ranges of lofty peaks, five or six thousand feet up, the 
snow lying thick upon them in the midst of summer, 
glaciers oozing down the gorges, like cataracts arrested 
in their fall by the Frost Enchanter, motionless, yet 
with the form of motion. From the snow, from the ice 
when the glaciers reach a warmer level, melt streams 






THE NORWAY FJORDS. 313 

which swell at noon, as the sun grows hot, descend in 
never-ending waterfalls, cascade upon cascade, through 
the ravines which they have cut for themselves in 
millions of years. In the evening they dwindle away, 
and at night fall silent as the frost resumes its power. 

From the great central fjords branches strike out 
right and left, some mere inlets ending after a few miles, 
some channels which connect one fjord with another. 
The surface of Norway, as it is shown flat upon a chart, 
is lined and intersected by these waterways as the sur- 
face of England is by railways. The scenery, though 
for ever changing, changes like the pattern of a kaleido- 
scope, the same materials readjusted in varying com- 
binations; the same great rivers of sea- water, the same 
mountain walls, the same ice and snow on the summits, 
the same never-ending pines and birches, with an 
emerald carpet between the stems where in summer 
the universal whortleberry hides the stones under the 
most brilliant green. The short fjords and the large 
are identical in general features, save that, lying at 
right angles to the prevailing winds, the surface of 
these lateral waters is usually undisturbed by a single 
ripple ; the clouds may be racing over the high ridges, 
but down below no breath can reach. Hence the light 
is undispersed. The eye, instead of meeting anywhere 
with white water, sees only rocks, woods, and cataracts 
reversed as in a looking-glass. This extreme stillness 
and the optical results of it, are the cause, I suppose, of 
the gloom of Norwegian landscape-painting. 

How these fjords wei^e formed is, I believe, as yet 



3M THE NORWAY FJORDS. 

undetermined. Water has furrowed the surface of the 
globe into many a singular shape ; water, we are told, 
cut out the long gorge below Niagara ; but water, act- 
ing as we now know it, scarcely scooped out of the 
hardest known rock these multitudinous fissures so 
uniform in character between walls which pierce the 
higher strata of the clouds, between cliffs which in some 
places rise, as in the Geiranger, perpendicular for a 
thousand feet; the fjords themselves of such extra- 
ordinary depth, and deepest always when furthest from 
the sea. Where they enter the Atlantic, there is bottom 
generally in a hundred fathoms. In the Sogne, a 
hundred miles inland, you find 700 fathoms. Rivers 
cutting their way through rock and soil could never 
have achieved such work as this. Ice is a mighty 
thaumaturgist, and ice has been busy enough in Norway. 
The fjords were once filled with ice up to a certain 
level ; the level to which it rose can be traced on the 
sharp angles ground off the rounded stone, and the 
scores of the glacier plane on the polished slabs of gneiss 
or granite. But at some hundreds of feet above the 
present water-line the ice action ends, and cliffs and 
crags are scarred and angular and weather-splintered 
to where they are lost in the eternal snow. The vast 
moraines which occasionally block the valleys tell the 
same story. The largest that I saw was between four 
and five hundred feet high, and we have to account for 
chasms which, if we add the depth of the water to the 
height of the mountains above it, are 9000 feet from 
the bottom to the mountain crest. 






THE NORWAY FJORDS. 315 

The appearance of Norway is precisely what it would 
have been if the surface had cracked when cooling into 
a thousand fissures, longitudinal and diagonal, if these 
fissures had at one time been filled with sea- water, at 
another with ice, and the sides above the point to which 
the ice could rise had been chipped and torn and weather- 
worn by rain and frost through endless ages. Whether 
this is, in fact, the explanation of their form, philoso- 
phers will in good time assure themselves ; meantime, 
this is what they are outwardly like, which for present 
purposes is all that need be required. 

A country so organised can be traversed in no way 
so conveniently as by a steam-yacht, which carries the 
four-and-twenty winds in its boiler. It is not the 
romance of yachting ; and the steamer, beside the grace- 
ful schooner with its snowy canvas, seems prosaic and 
mechanical. The schooner does well in the open water 
with free air and sea room ; but let no schooner venture 
into the Norway fjords, where slant winds come not by 
which you can make a course by a long reach, where 
there is either a glassy calm or a wind blowing up or 
down. If you reached the end of the Sogne you might 
spend a season in beating back to the sea, and, except 
in some few spots where you might not be able to go, 
you cannot so much as anchor on account of the depth 
of water. Shut in among these mountains, you may 
drift becalmed in a sailing-yacht for weeks together, 
while to a steamer the course is as easy and sure as to 
a carriage on a turnpike road. Your yacht is your 
house; like a wishing carpet, it transports you wher- 



316 THE NORWAY FJORDS. 

ever you please to go, and is here and there and any- 
where. You note your position on the chart ; you scan 
it with the sense that the world of Norway is all before 
you to go where you like ; you choose your next anchor- 
ing-place ; you point it out to the pilot ; you know your 
speed — there is no night in the summer months — you 
dine ; you smoke your evening cigar ; you go to your 
berth; you find yourself at breakfast in your new 
surroundings. 

So then, on that June evening, we steamed out of 
the Solent. Our speed in smooth water was ten knots ; 
our distance from Udsire Light, for which our course 
was laid, was 700 miles. It was calm and cloudless, 
bat unusually cold. When night brought the stars we 
saw the comet high above us, the tail of him pointing 
straight away from the sun, as if the head was a lens 
through which the sun's rays lighted the atoms of ether 
behind it. Sleep, which had grown fitful in the London 
season, came back to us at once in our berths unscared 
by the grinding of the screw. We woke fresh and 
elastic when the decks were washed. The floors of the 
cabins lifted on hinges, and below were baths into which 
the sea- water poured till we could float in it. When we 
came up and looked about us we were running past the 
North Foreland. With the wind aft and the water 
smooth we sped on. I lay all the morning on a sofa 
in the deck cabin, and smoked and read Xenophon's 
' Memorabilia.' So one day passed, and then another. 
On the evening of July 2 we passed through a fleet of 
English trawlers, a few units of the ten thousand feeders 



THE NORWAY FJORDS. 317 

of the London stomach, the four million human beings 
within the bills of mortality whom the world combines 
to nourish. We were doing two hundred miles a day. 
The calm continued, and the ladies so far had suffered 
nothing. There was no motion save the never-resting 
heave of the ocean swell. Homer had observed that 
long undulation ; Ulysses felt it when coming back from 
Hades to Circe's island. The thing is the same, though 
the word ' ocean ' has changed its meaning. To Homer 
Ocean was a river which ran past the grove of Proser- 
pine. It was not till the ship had left the river mouth 
for the open sea that she lifted on the wave. 1 

On the third afternoon the weather changed. The 
cold of the high latitude drove us into our winter 
clothes. The wind rose from the north-west, bringing 
thick rain with it, and a heavy beam sea. The yacht 
rolled 20° each way. Long steamers, without sails to 
steady them, always do roll, but our speed was not 
altered. We passed Udsire Light on the 3rd, at seven 
in the evening, and then groped our way slowly, for, 
though there was no longer any night, we could see 
little for fog and mist. At last we picked up a pilot, 
who brought us safely into the roadstead at Bergen, 
where we were to begin our acquaintance with Norway. 
Bergen stands fifteen miles inland, with three fjords 
leading to it, built on a long tongue of rock between 
two inlets, and overhung with mountains. There is a 

1 Avrap lirel 7rorajuoTo XtVev poov 'Qietavolo 
Nqu£, a7ro 6' 'ikito Kiifia OaXdaaijg evpvTropow. 

Odyssey, xii. 1, 2. 



3i8 THE NORWAY FJORDS. 

great trade there, chiefly in salt fish, I believe — any 
way the forty thousand inhabitants seemed, from the 
stir on shore and in the harbour, to have plenty to 
occupy them. We landed and walked round. There 
are no handsome houses, but no beggars and no signs 
of poverty. 'You have poor here/ I said to a coal 
merchant, who had come on board for orders, and could 
speak English. 'Poor?' he said; c yes, many; not, of 
course, such poor as you have in England. Every one 
has enough to eat.' To our sensations it was extremely 
cold ; cold as an English January. But cold and heat 
are relative terms ; and an English January might seem 
like summer after Arctic winters. The Bergen people 
took it to be summer, for we found a public garden 
where a band played ; and there were chairs and tables 
for coffee out of doors. Trees and shrubs were acclima- 
tised. Lilacs, acacias, and horse-chestnuts were in 
flower. There were roses in bud, and the gardeners 
were planting out geraniums. We saw the fish market ; 
everywhere a curious place, for you see there the fish 
that are caught, the fishermen who catch them, with 
their boats and gear, the market women, and the 
citizens who come to buy. It is all fish in Bergen. 
The telegrams on the wall in the Bourse tell you only 
how fish are going in Holland and Denmark. The talk 
is of fish. On the rocks outside the town stand huge 
ricks, looking like bean-stacks, but they are of dried 
cod and ling. The streets and squares smell of fish. 
A steamer bound for Hull lay close to us in the road- 
stead ; which to leeward might have been winded for 



THE NORWAY FJORDS. 319 

a mile. Lads stagger about the streets cased between 
a pair of halibuts, like the Chelsea paupers between two 
advertisement boards inviting us to vote for Sir Charles 
Dilke at an election. Still, excepting the odours, we 
liked Bergen well. You never hear the mendicant 
whine there. Those northern people know how to 
work and take care of themselves, and loafers can find 
no living among them. I do not know whether there 
is so much as a beggar in the whole town. They are 
quiet, simple, industrious folk, who mind their own 
business. For politics they care little as yet, not sup- 
posing that on this road is any kind of salvation for 
them, though, perhaps, their time will come. They are 
Lutherans ; universally Lutherans. It is the national 
religion, and they are entirely satisfied with it. Pro- 
testant dissent is never heard of. There is a Catholic 
church in Bergen for the foreign sailors, but I doubt if 
the priests have converted a single Norwegian. They 
are a people already moderately well-to-do in body and 
mind, and do not need anything which the priests could 
give them. The intellectual essentials are well looked 
after — the schools are good, and well attended. The 
Bergen museum is a model on a small scale of what a 
local museum ought to be, an epitome of Norway itself 
past and present. Perhaps there is not another in 
Europe so excellent of its kind. In the gallery of an- 
tiquities there is the Norway of the sea kings, Runic 
tablets and inscriptions, chain armour, swords and clubs 
and battleaxes, pots of earthenware, stone knives and 
hammers of a still earlier age. There are the traces 



32o THE NORWAY FJORDS. 

of their marauding expeditions, Greek and Italian 
statuettes, rings, chains, bracelets, and drinking-cups, 
one or two of these last especially curious, for glass was 
rare and precious when they were made or mended. 
The glass of one has been broken, and has been pieced 
with silver. These obviously were the spoils of some 
cruise in the Mediterranean, and there is old church 
plate among them which also tells its story. By the 
side of these are the implements of the Norsemen's 
other trade — fishing : specimens of nets, lines, hooks, 
spears and harpoons, for whale and walrus, and cross- 
bows, the barbed arrow having a line attached to it for 
shooting seals. In the galleries above is a ^ery complete 
collection of the Scandinavian mammalia — wolves, bears, 
lynxes, foxes, whales, seals, and sea-horses, every kind 
of fish, every bird, land or water, all perfectly well classi- 
fied, labelled, and looked after. Superior persons are 
in charge of it, who can hold their own with the leading 
naturalists of France or England ; and all this is main- 
tained at a modest cost by the Bergen corporation. 

The houses are plain, but clean ; no dirt is visible 
anywhere, and there is one sure sign of a desire to 
make life graceful. The hardiest flowers only will grow 
out of doors, but half the windows in the town are filled 
with myrtles, geraniums, or carnations. With the people 
themselves we had little opportunity of acquaintance ; 
but one evening, the second after our arrival, we were 
on 'deck after dinner between ten and eleven in the 
evening. The sunshine was still on the hills. Though 
chilly to us, the air was warm to Bergen ; the bay was 






THE NORWAY FJORDS. 32 1 

covered with boats ; family groups of citizens out enjoy- 
ing themselves ; music floating on the water and songs 
made sweet by distance. Others were anchored fishing. 

D rowed me out in the yacht's punt to a point half 

a mile distant. We brought up at an oar's length from 
some young ladies with a youth in charge of them. 
Some question asked as an excuse for conversation was 
politely answered. One of them spoke excellent Eng- 
lish ; she was a lively, clever girl, had been in Ireland, 
and was quick with repartee, well bred and refined. 
Their manners were faultless, but they fished as if they 
had been bred to the trade. They had oilskin aprons 
to save their dresses, and they pulled up their fish and 
handled their knives and baits like professionals. 

Our first taste of Norway, notwithstanding the per- 
fume of salt ling, was very pleasant ; but we had far to 
go — as far as Lofoden if we could manage it — and we 
might not loiter. We left Bergen on the 6th with a 
local pilot. Trondhjem or Drontheim was the next 
point where we were to expect letters, and two courses 
lead to it — either by the open sea outside the shoals and 
islands, or inland by the network of fjords, longer but 
infinitely the most interesting, with the farther merit 
of water perfectly smooth. We started at six in the 
morning and flew on rapidly among tortuous channels, 
now sweeping through a passage scarcely wider than 
the yacht's length, now bursting into an archipelago of 
islets. The western coast of Norway is low and level — 
a barren undulating country, with the sea flowing freely 
through the hollows. Here and there are green patches 



322 THE NORWAY FJORDS. 

of meadow with a few trees, where there would be a 
bonder's or yeoman's farm. Prettily painted lighthouses 
with their red roofs marked our course for us, and a girl 
or two would come out upon the balconies to look at us 
as we rushed by within a gun-shot. Eider-ducks flashed 
out of the water, the father of the family as usual the 
first to fly, and leaving wife and children to take care of 
themselves. Fishing-boats crossed us at intervals, and 
now and then a whale spouted : other signs of life there 
were none. Towards midday we entered the Sogne 
Fjord ; we turned eastward towards the great mountain 
ranges ; and, as in the fairy tale the rock opens to the 
Enchanted Prince, and he finds himself amidst gardens 
and palaces, so, as we ran on seemingly upon an im- 
penetrable wall, cliff and crag fell apart, and we entered 
on what might be described as an infinite extension of 
Loch Lomond, save only that the mountains were far 
grander, the slopes more densely wooded, and that, far 
up, we were looking on the everlasting snow, or the 
green glitter of the glaciers. 

On either side of us, as we steamed on, we crossed 
the mouths of other fjords, lateral branches precisely 
like the parent trunk, penetrating, as we could see upon 
our chart, for tens of miles. Norse history grew intel- 
ligible as we looked at them. Here were the hiding- 
places where the vikings, wickelings, hole-and-corner 
pirates, ran in with their spoils ; and here was the ex- 
planation of their roving lives. The few spots where a 
family can sustain itself on the soil are scattered at 
intervals of leagues. The woods are silent and desolate ; 



THE NORWAY FJORDS. 323 

wild animals of any kind we never saw : hunting there 
could have been none. The bears have increased since 
the farming introduced sheep ; but a thousand years ago, 
save a few reindeer and a few grouse and ptarmigan, 
there was nothing which would feed either bear or man. 
Few warm-blooded creatures, furred or feathered, can 
endure the winter cold. A population cannot live by 
fish alone, and thus the Norsemen became rovers by 
necessity, and when summer came they formed in fleets 
and went south to seek their sustenance. The pine 
forests were their arsenal; their vessels were the best 
and fastest in the world ; the water was their only 
road ; they were boatmen and seamen by second nature, 
and the sea-coasts within reach of a summer outing were 
their natural prey. 

We were bound for Trondhjem, but we intended to 
stop occasionally on the way, and see what deserved to 
be seen. We were looking for an anchoring-place where 
there was a likelihood of fishing ; and we had seen an 
inlet on the chart, turning out of the Sogne, which seemed 
promising. At the upper end two rivers appeared to run 
into it out of freshwater lakes close by ; conditions likely 
to yield salmon. It was our first experiment. A chart 
is flat. Imagination, unenlightened by experience, had 
pictured the fjord ending in level meadows, manageable 
streams winding through them, and, beyond, perhaps some 
Bydal or Grasmere lying tranquil among its hills. The 
pilot said that he knew the place, but could give us no 
description of it. Anticipation generally makes mistakes 
on such occasions, but never were fact and fancy more 



324 THE NORWAY FJORDS. 

startlingly at variance. Lord Salisbury advised people 
to study geography on large maps. Flat charts are more 
convenient than models of a country in relief, but they 
are treacherous misleaders. Grand as the Sogne had 
been, the inlet into which we were now striking was 
grander still. The forests on the shores were denser, the 
slopes steeper, the cliffs and peaks soaring up in more 
stupendous majesty. We ran on thus for eight or ten 
miles : then, turning round a projecting spur, we found 
ourselves in a landlocked estuary smooth as a mirror, 
the mountains on one side of it beautiful in evening 
sunlight, on the other darkening the water with their 
green purple shadows ; at the far extremity, which was 
still five miles from us, a broad white line showed, 
instead of our ' meadow stream,' a mighty torrent pour- 
ing in a cataract over the face of a precipice into the 
sea. 

At the foot of this fall, not three hundred yards 
from it (no bottom was to be found at a greater distance) 
we anchored half-an-hour later, and looked about us. 
We were in the heart of a primitive Norwegian valley, 
buried among mountains so lofty and so unbroken that 
no road had ever entered, or could enter, it. It was the 
first of many which we saw afterwards of the same type, 
and one description will serve for all. 

We were in a circular basin at the head of the fjord. 
In front of us was a river as large as the Clyde rushing 
out of a chasm a thousand feet above us, and plunging 
down in boiling foam. Above this chasm, and inac- 
cessible, was one of the lakes which we had seen on the 



THE NORWAY FJORDS. 325 

chart, and in which we had expected to catch salmon. 
The mountains round were, as usual, covered with wood. 
At the foot of the fall, and worked by part of it, was a 
large saw-mill with its adjoining sheds and buildings. 
The pines were cut as they were wanted, floated to the 
mill and made into planks, vessels coming at intervals 
to take them away. The Norwegians are accused of 
wasting their forests with these mills. We could see no 
signs of it. In the first place, the sides of the fjords 
are so steep that the trees can be got at only in com- 
paratively few places. When they can be got at, there 
is no excessive destruction ; more pines are annually 
swept away by avalanches than are consumed by all the 
mills in Norway ; and the quantity is so enormous that 
the amount which men can use is no more likely to 
exhaust it than the Loch Fyne fishermen are likely to 
exhaust the herring shoals. 

On the other side of the basin where we lay was the 
domain of the owner of the mill. Though the fjord 
ended, the great ravine in which it was formed stretched, 
as we could see, a couple of miles further, but had been 
blocked by a moraine. The moraines, being formed of 
loose soil and stones deposited by ice in the glacial 
period, are available for cultivation, and are indeed 
excellent land. There were forty or fifty acres of grass 
laid up for hay, a few acres of potatoes, a red-roofed 
sunny farmhouse with large outbuildings, carts and 
horses moving about, poultry crowing, cattle grazing, a 
boathouse and platform where a couple of lighters were 
unloading. Here was the house of a substantial, pros- 



326 THE NORWAY FJORDS. 

perous farmer. His nearest neighbour must have been 
twelve miles from him. He, his children, and farm- 
servants were the sole occupants of the valley. The 
saw- mill was theirs ; the boats were theirs ; their own 
hands supplied everything that was wanted. They were 
their own carpenters, smiths, masons, and glaziers ; they 
sheared their own sheep, spun and dyed their own wool, 
wove their own cloth, and cut and sewed their own 
dresses. It was a true specimen of primitive Norwegian 
life complete in itself — of peaceful, quiet, self-sufficient, 
prosperous industry. 

The snake that spoiled Paradise had doubtless found 
its way into Nord Gulen (so our valley was named) as 
into other places, but a softer, sweeter-looking spot we 
had none of us ever seen. It was seven in the evening 
when we anchored ; a skiff came off, rowed by a couple of 
plain stout girls with offers of eggs and milk. Fishing- 
lines were brought out as soon as the anchor was down. 
The surface water w r as fresh, and icy cold as coming out 
of the near glaciers ; but it was salt a few fathoms down, 
and almost immediately we had a basket of dabs and 
whiting. 

After dinner, at nine o'clock, with the sun still 

shining, D and I went ashore with our trout rods. 

We climbed the moraine, and a narrow lake lay spread 
out before us, perfectly still, the sides steep, in many 
places precipitous, trees growing wherever a root could 
strike. The lake was three miles long, and seemed to 
end against the foot of a range of mountains 5 000 feet 
high, the peaks of which, thickly covered with snow, 



THE NORWAY FJORDS. 327 

were flushed with the crimson light of the evening. The 
surface of the water was spotted with rings where the 
trout were rising. One of the farmers boys, who had 
followed us, offered his boat. It was of native manu- 
facture, and not particularly watertight, but we stowed 
ourselves, one in the bow and the other in the stern. 
The boy had never seen such rods as ours ; he looked 
incredulously at them, and still more at our flies; but 
he rowed us to the top of the lake, where a river came 
down out of the snow-mountain, finishing its descent 
with a leap over a cliff. Here he told us there were trout 
if we could catch them ; and he took us deliberately 
into the spray of the waterfall, not understanding, till 
we were nearly wet through, that we had any objection 
to it. As the evening went on the scene became every 
minute grander and more glorious. The sunset colours 
deepened ; a crag just over us, 2000 feet high, stood out 
clear and sharp against the sky. We stayed for two or 
three hours, idly throwing our flies and catching a few 
trout no longer than our hands, thereby confirming our 
friend's impression of our inefficiency. At midnight we 
were in the yacht again — midnight, and it was like a 
night in England at the end of June five minutes after 
sunset. 

This was our first experience of a Norway fjord, 
and for myself I would have been content to go no 
further; have studied in detail the exquisite beauty 
which was round us ; have made friends with the owner 
and his household, and found out what they made of 
their existence under such conditions. There in epitome 



328 THE NORWAY FJORDS. 

I should Lave been seeing Norway and the Norwegians. 
It was no Arcadia of piping shepherds. In the summer 
the young men are awa} 7 at the mountain farms, high 
grazing ground underneath the snow-line. The women 
work with their brothers and husbands, and weave and 
make the clothes. They dress plainly, but with good 
taste, with modest embroidery ; a handsome bag hangs 
at the waist of the housewife. There is reading, too, 
and scholarship. A boy met us on a pathway, and spoke 
to us in English. We asked him when he had been in 
England. He had never been beyond his own valley ; 
in the long winter evenings he had taught himself with 
an English grammar. No wonder with such ready adapt- 
abilities the Norwegians make the best of emigrants. 
The overflow of population which once directed itself in 
such rude fashion on Normandy and England now finds 
its way to the United States, and no incomers are more 
welcome there. 

But a yacht is for movement and change. We were 
to start again at noon the next day. The morning was 
hot and bright. While the engineer was getting up 
steam, we rowed to the foot of the great fall. I had 
my small trout rod w r ith me, and trolled a salmon fly 
on the chance. There were no salmon there, but we 
saw brown trout rising ; so I tried the universal 
favourites — a March brown and a red spinner — and in 
a moment had a fish that bent the rod double. An- 
other followed, and another, and then I lost a large one. 

I passed the rod to D , in whose hands it did still 

better service. In an hour we had a basket of trout 



THE NORWAY FJORDS. 329 

that would have done credit to an English chalk stream. 
The largest was nearly three pounds weight, admirably 
grown, and pink ; fattened, I suppose, on the mussels 
which paved the bottom of the rapids. We were off 
immediately after, still guided to a new point by the 
chart, but not in this instance by the chart only. There 
was a spot which had been discovered the year before 
by the Duke of , of which we had a vague descrip- 
tion. We had a log on board which had been kept 
by the Duke's mate, in which he had recorded many 
curious experiences; among the rest an adventure at 
a certain lake not very far from where we were. The 
Duke had been successful there, and his lady had been 
very nearly successful. ' We had grief yesterday,' the 
mate wrote, ' her Grace losing a twelve-pound salmon 
which she had caught on her little line, and just as 
they were going to hook it, it went off, and we were 
very sorry.' The grief went deep, it seemed, for the 
next day the crew were reported as only ' being as well 
as could be expected after so melancholy an accident.' 
We determined to find the place, and, if possible, avenge 
her Grace. We crossed the Sogne and went up into 
the Nord Fjord — of all the fjords the most beautiful; 
for on either side there are low terraces of land left by 
glacier action, and more signs of culture and human 
habitations. After running for fifty miles, we turned 
into an inlet corresponding tolerably with the Duke's 
directions, and in another half-hour we were again in a 
mountain basin like that which we had left in the 
morning. The cataracts were in their glory, the day 



330 THE NORWAY FJORDS. 

having been warm for a wonder. I counted seventeen 
all close about us when we anchored, any one of which 
would have made the fortune of a Scotch hotel, and 
would have been celebrated by Mr. Murray in pages of 
passionate eloquence. But Stromen, or 'the Streams/ 
as the place was called, was less solitary than Nord 
Gulen. There was a large farm on one side of us. 
There was a cluster of houses at the mouth of a river, 
half a mile from it. Above the village was a lake, 
and at the head of the lake an establishment of saw- 
mills. A gun-shot from where we lay, on a rocky knoll, 
was a white wooden church, the Sunday meeting-place 
of the neighbourhood ; boats coming to it from twenty 
miles round bringing families in their bright Sunday 
attire. Roads there were none. To have made a 
league of road among such rocks and precipices would 
have cost the State a year's revenue. But the water 
was the best of approaches, and boats the cheapest of 
carriages. We called on the chief proprietor to ask for 
leave to fish in the lake. It was granted with the 
readiest courtesy ; but the Norsemen are proud in their 
way, and do not like the Englishman's habit of treating 
all the world as if it belonged to him. The low 
meadows round his house were bright with flowers : 
two kinds of wild geranium, an exquisite variety of 
harebell, sea-pride, pansies, violets, and the great pin- 
guicola. Among the rocks were foxgloves in full 
splendour, and wild roses just coming into flower. The 
roses alone of the Norway flora disappointed me ; the 
leaves are large, dark, and handsome ; the flower is 



THE NORWAY FJORDS. 331 

insignificant, and falls to pieces within an hour of its 
opening. We were satisfied that we were on the right 
spot. The church stood on a peninsula, the neck of 
which immediately adjoined our anchorage. Behind 
it was the lake which had been the scene of the 
Duchess's misfortune. We did not repeat our midnight 
experiment. We waited for a leisurely breakfast. Five 
of the crew then carried the yacht's cutter through 
fifty yards of bushes ; and we were on the edge of the 
lake itself, which, like all these inland waters, was 
glassy, still, deep, and overhung with precipices. The 
owner had suggested to us that there were bears among 
them, which we might kill if we pleased, as they had 
just eaten seven of his sheep. So little intention had 
we of shooting bears that we had not brought rifle or 
even gun with us. Our one idea was to catch the 
Duchess's twelve-pound salmon, or, if not that one, at 
least another of his kindred. 

In a strange lake it is well always to try first with 
spinning tackle, a bait trolled with a long line from the 
stern of a boat rowed slowly. It will tell you if there 
are fish to be caught ; it will find out for you where 
the fish most haunt, if there are any. We had a 
curious experience of the value of this method on a 
later occasion, and on one of our failures. We had 
found a lake joined to an arm of a fjord by a hundred 
yards only of clear running water. We felt certain of 
finding salmon there, and if we had begun with flies 
we might have fished all day and have caught nothing. 
Instead of this we began to spin. In five minutes we 



332 THE NORWAY FJORDS. 

had a run; we watched eagerly to see what we had 
got. It was a whiting pollock. We went on. We 
hooked a heavy fish. We assured ourselves that now 
we had at least a trout. It turned out to be a cod. 
The sea fish, we found, ran freely into the fresh water, 
and had chased trout and salmon completely out. At 
Stromen we were in better luck. We started with 
phantom minnows on traces of strong single gut, forty 
yards of line, and forty more in reserve on the reel. 
Two men rowed us up the shore an oar's length from 
the rocks. Something soon struck me. The reel flew 
round, the line spun out. In the wake of the boat 
there was a white flash, as a fish sprang into the air. 
Was it the Duchess's salmon ? It was very like it, any 
way; and if we had lost him, it would have been 
entered down as a salmon. It proved, however, to be 
no salmon, but a sea trout, and such a sea trout as we 
had never seen ; not a bull trout, not a peel, not a 
Welsh sewin, or Irish white trout, but a Norwegian, of 
a kind of its own, different from all of them. This was 
the first of many which followed, of sizes varying from 
three pounds to the twelve pounds which the mate had 
recorded ; fine, bold, fighting fish, good to look at, good 
to catch, and as good to eat when we tried them. 
Finally, in the shallower water, at the upper end, a 
fish took me, which from its movements was something 
else, and proved to be a large char, like what they take 
in Derwentwater, only four times the weight. Looking 
carefully at the water we saw more char swimming 
leisurely near the surface, taking flies. We dropped 



THE NORWAY FJORDS. 333 

our spinning tackle, and took our fly rods; and presently 
we were pulling in char, the blood royal of the salmon- 
idse, the elect of all the finned children of the fresh 
water, as if they had been so many Thames chub. 

What need to talk more of fish ? The mate's log 
had guided us well. We caught enough and to spare, 
and her Grace's wrongs were avenged sufficiently. We 
landed for our frugal luncheon — dry biscuits and a 
whisky flask — but we sate in a bed of whortleberries, 
purple with ripe fruit, by a cascade which ran down 
out of a snow-field. Horace would have invited his 
dearest friend to share in such a banquet. 

The next day was Sunday. The sight of the boats 
coming from all quarters to church was very pretty. 
Fifteen hundred people at least must have collected. 
I attended the service, but could make little of it. I 
could follow the hymns with a book ; but copies of the 
Liturgy, though printed, are not provided for general 
use, and are reserved to the clergy. The faces of the 
men were extremely interesting. There was little in 
them to suggest the old freebooter. They were mild 
and gentle-looking, with fair skins, fair hair, and light 
eyes, grey or blue. The expression was sensible and 
collected, but with nothing about it specially adventur- 
ous or daring. The women, in fact, were more striking 
than their husbands. There was a steady strength in 
their features which implied humour underneath. Two 
girls, I suppose sisters, reminded me of Mrs. Gaskell. 
With the Lutheran, Sunday afternoon is a holiday. A 
yacht in such a place was a curiosity, and a fleet of 



334 THE NORWAY FJORDS. 

boats surrounded us. Such as liked came on board and 
looked about them. They were well-bred, and showed 
no foolish surprise. One old dame, indeed, being taken 
down into the ladies' cabin, did find it too much for her. 
She dropped down and kissed the carpet. One of our 
party wondered afterwards whether there was any 
chance of the Norwegians attaining a higher civilisation. 
I asked her to define civilisation. Did industry, skill, 
energy, sufficient food and raiment, sound practical 
education, and piety which believes without asking 
questions, constitute civilisation ; and would luxury, 
newspapers, and mechanics' institutes mean a higher 
civilisation ? The old question must first be answered, 
"What is the real purpose of human life ? 

At Stromen, too, we could not linger ; we stopped a 
few hours at Daviken on our way north, a considerable 
place for Norway, on the Nord Fjord. There is a 
bishop, I believe, belonging to it, but him we did not 
see. We called at the parsonage and found the pastor's 
wife and children. The pastor himself came on board 
afterwards — a handsome man of sixty-seven, with a 
broad, full forehead, large nose, and straight grizzled 
hair. He spoke English, and would have spoken Latin 
if we had ourselves been equal to it. He had read 
much English literature, and was cultivated above the 
level of our own average country clergy. His parish 
was thirty miles long on both sides of the fjord. He 
had several churches, to all of which he attended in 
turn, with boats in summer, and occasionally perhaps 
with the ice in winter. We did not ask his salary ; it 



THE NORWAY FJORDS. 335 

was doubtless small, but sufficient. He had a school 
under him which he said was well attended. The 
master, who had a state certificate, was allowed 25Z. a 
year, on which he was able to maintain himself. We 
could not afford time to see more of this gentleman, 
however. We were impatient for Trondhjem; the 
engineer wanted coals; we wanted our letters and 
newspapers; and the steward wanted a washerwoman. 
On our way up, too, we had arranged to give a day or 
two to Romsdal, Rolf the Ganger's country. On an 
island in Romsdal Fjord the ruins can still be seen of 
Rolf's Castle. It was there that Rolf, or Rollo as we 
call him, set out with his comrades to conquer Normandy, 
and produce the chivalry who fought at Hastings and 
organised feudal England. This was not to be missed ; 
and as little, a visit which we had promised to a 
descendant of one of those Normans, a distinguished 
Tory member of the House of Commons, and lord of 
half an English county, who had bought an estate in 
these parts, with a salmon river, and had built himself 
a house there. 

Romsdal, independent of its antiquarian interest, is 
geologically the most remarkable place which we saw 
in Norway. The fjord expands into a wide estuary or 
inland lake, into which many valleys open and several 
large streams discharge themselves. Romsdal proper 
was once evidently itself a continuation of the Great 
Fjord. The mountains on each side of it are peculiarly 
magnificent. On the left Romsdal's Horn shoots up 
into the sky, a huge peak which no one at that time 



336 THE NORWAY FJORDS. 

had ever climbed, and will try the mettle of the Alpine 
Club when they have conquered Switzerland. On the 
right is a precipitous wail of cliffs and crags as high 
and bold as the Horn itself. The upper end of the 
valley which divides them terminates in a narrow fissure, 
through which a river thunders down that carries the 
water of the great central ice-field into the valley. 
From thence it finds its way into the fjord, running 
through the glen itself, which is seven or eight miles 
long, two miles wide, and richly cultivated and wooded. 
From the sea the appearance of the shore is most 
singular. It is laid out in level grassy terraces, stretch- 
ing all round the bay, rising in tiers one above the 
other, so smooth, so even, so nicely scarfed, that the 
imagination can hardly be persuaded that they are not 
the work of human engineers. But under water the 
formation is the same. At one moment you are in 
twenty fathoms, the next in forty, the next your cable 
will find no bottom ; and it is as certain as any conclu- 
sion on such subjects can be, that long ago, long ages 
before Rolf, and Knut, and the Vikings, the main fjord 
was blocked with ice ; that while the ice barrier was 
still standing, and the valleys behind it were fresh- 
water lakes, the rivers gradually filled them with a 
d6bris of stone and soil. Each level terrace was once a 
lake bottom. The ice broke or melted away at inter- 
vals. The water was lowered suddenly forty or fifty 
feet, and the ground lately covered was left bare as the 
ice receded. 

We found our Englishman. His house is under the 



THE NORWAY FJORDS. ^t 

Horn at the bend of the valley, where the ancient fjord 
must have ended. It stands in a green open meadow, 
approached through alder and birch woods, the first 
cataract where the snow-water plunges through the 
great chasm being in sight of the windows, and half-a- 
dozen inimitable salmon pools within a few minutes' 
walk. The house itself was simple enough, made of 
pine wood entirely, as the Norway houses always are, 
and painted white. It contained some half-dozen 
rooms, furnished in the plainest English style, the sum- 
mer-house of a sportsman who is tired of luxury, and 
finds the absence of it an agreeable exchange. A man 
cannot be always catching salmon, even in Norway, and 
a smattering of science and natural history would be a 
serviceable equipment in a scene where there are so 
many curious objects worth attending to. Our friend's 
tastes, however, did not lie in that direction. His 
shelves were full of yellow-backed novels — French, 
English, and German. His table was covered w r ith the 
everlasting Saturday Review, Pall Mall Gazette, Times, 
and Standard. I think he suspected science as a part 
of modern Liberalism ; for he was a Tory of the Tories, 
a man with whom the destinies had dealt kindly, in 
whose eyes therefore all existing arrangements were as 
they should be, and those w T ho wished to meddle with 
them were enemies of the human race. He was sad 
and sorrowful. The world was not moving to his mind, 
and he spoke as if he was ultimus Bomarwrum. But 
if an aristocrat, he was an aristocrat of the best type — 
princely in his thoughts, princely in his habits, princely 



338 THE NORWAY FJORDS. 

even in his salmon fishing. The pools in the river 
being divided by difficult rapids, he had a boat and a 
boatman for each. The sport was ample but uniform. 
There was an ice cellar under the house where we saw 
half-a-dozen great salmon lying which had been caught 
in the morning. One salmon behaves much like 
another ; and after one has caught four or five, and 
when one knows that one can catch as many more as 
one wishes, impatient people might find the occupation 
monotonous. Happily there was a faint element of 
uncertainty still left. It was possible to fail even in 
the Romsdal. We were ourselves launched in boats in 
different pools at the risk of our lives to try our hands ; 
we worked diligently for a couple of hours, and I at 
least moved not so much as a fin. It was more enter- 
taining a great deal to listen to our host as he declaimed 
upon the iniquities of our present Radical chief. 
Politics, like religion, are matters of faith on which 
reason says as little as possible. One passionate belief 
is an antidote to another. It is impossible to continue 
to believe enthusiastically in a creed which a fellow- 
mortal with as much sense as oneself denies and exe- 
crates, and the collision of opinion produces the prudent 
scepticism which in most matters is the least mischievous 
frame of mind. 

Here, too, in these pleasant surroundings we would 
gladly have loitered for a day or two ; but the steward 
was clamorous over his dirty linen, and it was not to 
be. My last impressions of Romsdal fell into the 
form of a few doggrel verses, an indulgence on which 



THE NORWAY FJORDS. 339 

I rarely venture, and which for once, therefore, may 
be pardoned. 

ROMSDAL FJORD. 

July 11, 1881. 

So this, then, was the Kovers' nest, 

And here the chiefs were bred, 
Who broke the drowsy Saxon's rest 

And scared him in his bed. 

The north wind blew, the ship sped fast, 

Loud cheered the Corsair crew, 
And wild and free above the mast 

The Kaven standard flew. 

Sail south, sail south, there lies the land 

Where the yellow corn is growing ; 
The spoil is for the warrior's hand, 

The serf may have the sowing. 

Let cowards make their parchment laws, 

To guard their treasured hoards ; 
The steel shall plead the Kovers' cause, 

Their title-deeds their swords. 

The Eaven still o'er RomsdaPs peaks 

Is soaring as of yore, 
But Viking's call in cove or creek 

Calm Romsdal hears no more. 

Long ages now beneath the soil 

The Ganger has been lying, 
In Romsdal's bay his quiet toil 

The fisherman is plying. 

The English earl sails idly by, 

And from his deck would trace, 
With curious antiquarian eye, 

The cradle of his race. 



34 o THE NORWAY FJORDS. 

With time and tide we change and change, 

Yet still the world is young, 
Still free the proudest spirits range, 

The prize is for the strong. 

We deem it chief of glorious things 

In parliaments to shine, 
That orators are modern kings, 

And only not divine. 

But men will yet he ruled hy men, 

Though talk may have its day, 
And other Bolfs will rise again 

To sweep the rogues away. 

Trondhjem, on which our intentions had been so 
lono- fixed, was reached at last. The weather had 
grown cold again, cold with cataracts of rain. Let 
no one go to Norway even in the dog-days without a 
winter wardrobe. The sea-water in our baths was at 
47 ; we had fires in the cabin stove, and could not 
warm ourselves; we shivered under four blankets in 
our berths. The mountains were buried in clouds, and 
the landscape was reduced to a dull grey mist; but the 
worst of weathers will serve for reading letters, laying 
in coal, and wandering about a town. 

Trondhjem ought to have been interesting. It 
' was the capital of the old Norse kings. There reigned 
the Olafs. It lies half-way up the Norway coast in the 
very centre of the kingdom, on a broad landlocked bay. 
The situation was chosen for its strength ; for a deep 
river all but surrounds the peninsula on which the town 
is built, and on the land side it must have been impreg- 
nable. The country behind it is exceptionally fertile, 



THE NORWAY FJORDS. 341 

and is covered over with thriving farms; but streets 
and shops are wearisome, and even the cathedral did 
not tempt us to pay it more than a second visit. It is 
a stern solid piece of building ; early Norman in type, 
with doors, windows, and arches of zigzag pattern. It 
had fallen out of repair and was now being restored by 
the State; hundreds of workmen were busy chipping 
and hammering, and were doing their business so well 
that the new work can hardly be distinguished from 
the old. But Catholic Christianity never seems to have 
got any hearty hold on Norway. St. Olaf thrust it 
upon the people at the sword's point, but their imagin- 
ations remained heathen till the Reformation gave them 
a creed which they could believe. I could find but few 
tombs in the cathedral. I inquired where the old kings 
and chiefs were buried, and no one could tell me. I 
found, in fact, that they had usually come to an end in 
some sea-battle, and had found their graves in their own 
element. Olaf Tryggveson went down, the last sur- 
vivor in the last ship of his fleet, the rays of the sunset 
flashing on his armour as the waves closed over him. 
St. Olaf died in the same way. The absence of monu- 
mental stones or figures in the great metropolitan 
church of Norway is strange, sad, and impressive. 

The town being exhausted, we drove a few miles 
out of it to see a foss, one of the grandest in the 
country. We said ' Oh ! ' to it, as Wolfe Tone did to 
Grattan. But waterfalls had become too common with 
us, and, in fact, the excitement about them has always 
seemed exaggerated to me. I was staying once in a 



342 THE NORWAY FJORDS. 

house in the north of New York State when a gentle- 
man came in fresh from Niagara, and poured out his 
astonishment over the enormous mass of water fall- 
ing into the caldron below. ' Why is it astonishing ? ' 
asked a Yankee who was present. 'Why shouldn't 
the water fall? the astonishing thing would be if it 
didn't fall.' 

In short, we left the washerwoman in possession of 
the linen, which we could return and pick up when it 
was done, and we steamed away to examine the great 
Trondhjem Fjord ; fishing and making bad sketches as 
the weather would allow. The weather generally allowed 
us to do very little, and drove us upon our books, which 
we could have read as well in our rooms at home. I 
had brought the ' Elective Affinities ' with me. I had 
not read it for thirty years. Then it had seemed to me 
the wisest of all didactic works of fiction. 'Uncon- 
scious cerebration,' as Dr. Carpenter calls it, when I 
read the book again, had revolutionised my principles 
of judgment. I could still recognise the moral purpose. 
There are tendencies in human nature, like the chemical 
properties of material substances, which will claim 
possession of you, and even appear to have a moral 
right over you. But if you yield you will be destroyed. 
You can command yourself, and you must. Yery true, 
very excellent; and set forth with Goethe's greatest 
power of fascination ; but I found myself agreeing with 
the rest of the world that it was a monstrous book after 
all. To put the taste out I tried Seneca, but I scarcely 
improved matters. Seneca's fame as a moralist and 



THE NORWAY FJORDS. 343 

philosopher was due, perhaps, in the first instance, to 
his position about the Court, and to his enormous 
wealth. A little merit passes for a great deal when it 
is framed in gold, and once established it would retain 
its reputation, from the natural liking of men for virtu- 
ous cant. Those lectures to Lucilius on the beauty of 
poverty from the greatest money-lender and usurer in 
the Empire ! Lucilius is to practise voluntary hard- 
ships, is to live at intervals on beggars' fare, and 
sleep on beggars' pallets, that he may sympathise 
in the sufferings of mortality and be independent of 
outward things. If Seneca meant all this, why did 
he squeeze five millions of our money out of , the 
provinces with loans and contracts? He was barren 
as the Sahara to me. Not a green spot could I 
find, not a single genial honest thought, in all the four 
volumes with which I had encumbered myself. His 
finest periods rang hollow like brass sovereigns. The 
rain would not stop, so we agreed to defy the rain and 
to fish in spite of it. We had the fjord before us for a 
week, and we landed wherever we could hear of lake 
or river. For twelve hours together the waterspout 
would come down upon ns; Ave staggered about in 
thickest woollen, with mackintoshes and indiarubber 
boots. With flapped oilskin hats we should have been 
waterproof, but with one of these I was unprovided ; 
and, in spite of collars and woollen wrappers, the 
water would find its way down my neck till there 
was nothing dry left about me but the feet. Clothes 
grow heavy under such conditions; we had to take 



344 THE NORWAY FJORDS. 

our lightest rods with us, and now and then came to 
grief. I was fishing alone one day in a broad rocky 
stream fringed with alder bushes, dragging my landing- 
net with me. At an open spot where there was a likely 
run within reach I had caught a four-pound sea trout. 
I threw again ; a larger fish rose and carried off my fly. 
I mounted a ' doctor,' blue and silver, on the strongest 
casting line in my book, and on the second cast a 
salmon came. The river in the middle was running 
like a mill-sluice. I could not follow along the bank 
on account of the trees ; my only hope was to hold on 
and drag the monster into the slack water under the 
shore. My poor little rod did its best, but its best was 
not enough ; the salmon forced his way into the waves, 
round went the reel, off flew the line to the last inch, 
and then came the inevitable catastrophe. A white 
streak flashed wildly into the air, the rod straightened 
out, the line came home, and my salmon and my bright 
doctor sped away together to the sea. 

We were none the worse for our wettings. Each 
evening we came home dripping and draggled. A 
degree or two more of cold would have turned the rain 
into snow. Yet it signified nothing. We brought back 
our basketfuls of trout, and the Norwegian trout are 
the best in the world. We anchored one evening in a 
chasm with the mountain walls rising in precipices on 
both sides. The next morning as I was lying in my 
berth I heard a conversation between the steward and 
the captain. The captain asked the orders for the day ; 
the steward answered (he was the wit of the ship), 



THE NORWAY FJORDS. 345 

' Orders are to stretch an awning over the fjord that 
his lordship may fish.' 

But the weather so far beat us that we were obliged 
to abandon Lofoden. We were now at the end of July, 
and it was not likely to mend, so we determined to turn 
about and spend the rest of our time in the large fjords 
of South Norway. Trondhjem had been our furthest 
point ; we could not coal there after all, so we had to 
make for Christiansund on the way. I was not sorry 
for it, for Christiansund is a curious little bustling place, 
and worth seeing. It is the headquarters of the North 
Sea fishing trade near the open ocean, and the harbour 
is formed by three or four islands divided by extremely 
narrow channels, with a deep roomy basin in the middle 
of them. One of our crew was ill, and had to be taken 
for two or three days to the hospital. The arrange- 
ments seemed excellent, as every public department is 
in Norway. The town w T as pretty. The Norwegians 
dress plainly ; but they like bright colours for their 
houses, and the red-tiled roofs and blue and yellow 
painted fronts looked pleasant after our clouds of mist. 

The climate, from the proximity of the ocean, is said 
to be mild for its latitude. The snow, we were told, lay 
up to the lower windows through the winter, but that 
went for nothing. There were stocks and columbines 
in the gardens; there were ripe gooseberries and red 
currants and pink thorn and laburnum in flower. The 
harbour was full of fishing smacks, like Brixham 
trawlers, only rather more old-fashioned. Gay steam- 
ferry boats rushed about from island to island; large 



346 THE NORWAY FJORDS. 

ships were loading ; well-dressed strangers were in the 
streets and shops ; an English yacht had come like our- 
selves to take in coal, and was moored side by side with 
us. There are fewer people in the world than we 
imagine, and we fall on old acquaintances when we least 

expect them. The once beautiful was on board, 

whom I had known forty-five years before. She had 
married a distinguished engineer, who was out for his 
holiday. 

We stayed at Christiansund or in the neighbourhood 
till our sick man was recovered, and then followed 
(under better auspices as regarded weather) ten days 
of scenery hunting which need not be described. We 
went to Sondal, Laerdal, Nordal, and I don't know how 
many ' dais,' all famous places in their way, but with a 
uniformity of variety which becomes tedious in a story. 
One only noticeable feature I observed about the sheds 
and poorer houses in these out-of-the-way districts. 
They lay turf sods over the roofs, which become thick 
masses of vegetation ; and on a single cottage roof you 
may see half-a-dozen trees growing ten or fifteen feet 
high. For lakes and mountains, however beautiful, the 
appetite becomes soon satiated. They please, but they 
cease to excite ; and there is something artificial in the 
modern enthusiasm for landscapes. Velasquez or Kubens 
could appreciate a fine effect of scenery as well as 
Turner or Stanfield ; but with them it was a frame- 
work, subordinate to some human interest in the centre 
of the picture. I suppose it is because man in these 
democratic days has for a time ceased to touch the 



THE NORWAY FJORDS. 347 

imagination that our poets and artists are driven back 
upon rocks and rivers and trees and skies ; but the 
eclipse can only be temporary, and I confess, for myself, 
that, sublime as the fjords were, the saw-mills and farm- 
houses and fishing-boats, and the patient, industrious 
people wresting a wholesome living out of that stern 
environment, affected me very muclV more nearly. I 
cannot except even the Geiranger, as tremendous a 
piece of natural architecture as exists in the globe. 
The fjord in the Geiranger is a quarter of a mile wide 
and 600 fathoms deep. The walls of it are in most 
places not figuratively, but literally, precipices, and the 
patch of sky above your head seems to narrow as you 
look up. I hope I was duly impressed with the wonder 
of this ; but even here there was something that im- 
pressed me more, and that was the singular haymaking 
which was going on. The Norwegians depend for their 
existence on their sheep and cattle. Every particle of 
grass available for hay is secured ; and grass, peculiarly 
nutritious, often grows on the high ridges 2000 feet up. 
This they save as they can, and they have original ways 
of doing it. In the Geiranger it is tied tightly in 
bundles and flung over the cliffs to be gathered up in 
boats below. But science, too, is making its way in 
this northern wilderness. The farmhouses, for shelter's 
sake, are always at the bottom of valleys, and are 
generally near the sea. At one of our anchorages, shut 
in as usual among the mountains, we observed one 
evening from the deck what looked like a troop of 
green goats skipping and bounding down the cliffs. We 



548 THE NORWAY 1JGRDS. 

discovered through a binocular that they were bundles 
of hay. The clever bonder had carried up a wire, 
like a telegraph wire, from his courtyard to a pro- 
jecting point of mountain: on this ran iron rings 
as travellers which brought the grass directly to his 
door. 

Twice only in our wanderings we had fallen in with 
our tourist countrymen : once at Lserdal, where a high 
road comes down to a pier, and is met there by a 
corresponding steamer; the second time coming down 
from the Geiranger, when we passed a boat with two 
ladies and a gentleman, English evidently, the gentle- 
man touching his hat to the Yacht Club flag as we 
went by. Strange and pleasant the short glimpse of 
English faces in that wild chasm ! But we were plunged 
into the very middle of our countrymen at the last spot 
in which we went in search of the picturesque — a spot 
worth a few words as by far the most regularly beauti- 
ful of all the places which we visited. At the head of 
one of the long inlets which runs south, I think, out of 
the Hardanger Fjord (but our rapid movements were 
confusing) stands Odde, once a holy place in Scandi- 
navian mythological history. There is another Odde in 
Iceland, also sacred — I suppose Odin had something 
to do with it. The Odde Fjord is itself twenty miles 
long, and combines the softest and grandest aspects of 
Norwegian scenery. The shores are exceptionally well 
cultivated, richer than any which we had seen. Every 
half-mile some pretty farmhouse was shining red through 
clumps of trees, the many cattle-sheds speaking for the 



THE NORWAY FJORDS. 349 

wealth of the owner. Above, through the rifts of higher 
ranges you catch a sight of the Central Ice-field glacier 
streaming over among the broken chasms and melting 
into waterfalls. At Odde itself there is an extensive 
tract of fertile soil on the slope of a vast moraine, 
which stretches completely across the broad valley. 
On the sea at the landing-place is a large church and 
two considerable hotels, which were thronged with 
visitors. A broad road excellently engineered leads 
down to it, and we found a staff of English-speaking 
guides whose services we did not require. We had seen 
much of the ice action elsewhere, but the perform- 
ances of it at Odde were more wonderful even than at 
Romsdal. The moraine is perhaps 450 feet high ; the 
road winds up the side of it among enormous granite 
boulders, many of them weighing thousands of tons, 
which the ice has tossed about like pebble-stones. On 
reaching the crest you see a lake a quarter of a mile 
off; but before you come to it you cross some level 
fields, very rich to look at, and with patches of white- 
heart cherry-trees scattered about, the fruit, when we 
came there at the end of August, being actually ripe 
and extremely good. These fields were the old lake 
bottom ; but the river has cut a dyke for itself through 
the top of the moraine, and the lake has gone down 
some twenty feet, leaving them dry. 

The weather (penitent, perhaps, for having so long 
persecuted us) was in a better humour. Our days at 
Odde were warm and without a cloud, and we spent 
them chiefly by the lake, which was soft as Winder- 



350 THE NORWAY FJORDS. 

mere. We had come into a land of fruit ; not cherries 
only, but wild raspberries and strawberries were offered 
us in leaves by the girls on the road. The road itself 
followed the lake margin, among softly rounded and 
wooded hills, the great mountains out of sight behind 
them, save only in one spot where, through a gorge, 
you looked straight up to the eternal snow-field, from 
which a vast glacier descended almost into the lake 
itself, the ice imitating precisely the form of falling 
water, crushing its way among the rocks, parting in two 
where it met a projecting crag, and uniting again 
behind it, seeming even to heave and toss in angry 
waves of foam. 

From this glacier the lake was chiefly fed, and was 
blue, like skimmed milk, in consequence. We walked 
alon^ it for several miles. Fishing seemed honeless in 

O Ox 

water of such a texture. As we turned a corner two 
carriages dashed by us with some young men and dogs 
and guns — cockneys out for their holiday. ' Any sport, 
sir ? ' one of them shouted to me, seeing a rod in my 
hand, in the cheerful familiar tone which assumed that 
sport must be the first and only object which one could 
have in such a place. They passed on to the hotel, 
and the presence of so many of our own countrymen 
was inclining us to cut short our own stay. Some of 
the party, however, wished to inspect the glacier. We 
were ourselves assured that there were salmon in the 
lake, which, in spite of the colour, could be caught 
there. It was the last opportunity which we should 
have, as after Odde our next move was to be Christi- 



THE NORWAY FJORDS. 351 

ania. So we agreed to take one more day there and 
make the most of it. We got two native boats, and 
started to seek adventures. Alas ! we had the love- 
liest views; but the blue waters of Odde, however fair 
to look upon, proved as ill to fish in as at the first 
sight of them we were assured they must be. Our 
phantom minnows could not be seen three inches off, 
and the stories told us we concluded to be fables 
invented for the tourists. I, for my own part, had 
gone to the furthest extremity of the lake, where it 
ended in a valley like Borrodale. I was being rowed 
listlessly back, having laid aside my tackle, and wishing 
that I could talk to my old boatman, who looked as if 
all the stories of the Edda were inside him, when my eye 
was suddenly caught by a cascade coming down out of 
a ravine into the lake which had not been bred in the 
glaciers, and was as limpid as the Itchen itself. At the 
mouth of this it was just possible that there might be 
a char or something with fins that could see to rise. 
It was my duty to do what I could for the yacht's 
cuisine. I put together my little trout rod for a last 
attempt, and made my boatman row me over to it. 
The clear water was not mixing with the blue, but 
pushing its way through the milky masses, which were 
eddying and rolling as if they were oil. In a moment 
I had caught a sea trout. Immediately after I caught 
a second, and soon a basketful. They had been attracted 
by the purer liquid, and were gathered there in a 
shoal. They were lying with their noses up the 
stream at the furthest point to which they could go. I 



352 THE NORWAY FJORDS. 

got two or three, and those the largest, by throwing my 

fly against the rocks exactly at the fall. D came 

afterwards and caught more and bigger fish than I did ; 
and our sport, which indeed we had taken as it came 
without specially seeking for it, was brought to a good 
end. The end of August was come, and with it the 
period of our stay in the fjords. We had still to see 
Christiania, and had no time to lose. But of all the 
bits of pure natural loveliness which we had fallen in 
with, Odde and its blue lake, and glacier, and cherry 
orchards, and wild strawberries has left the fairest im- 
pression; perhaps, however, only because it was the 
last, for we were going home ; and they say that when 
a man dies, the last image which he has seen is 
photographed on his retina. 

But now away. The smoke pours through the 
funnel. The engine is snorting like an impatient horse. 
The quick rattle of the cable says that the anchor is 
off the ground. We were off, and had done with fjords. 
The inner passages would serve no longer ; we had to 
make for the open sea once more to round the foot of 
the peninsula. It is at no time the softest of voyages. 
The North Sea is not the home of calm sunsets and 
light- breathing zephyrs, and it gave us a taste of its 
quality, which, after our long sojourn in smooth water, 
was rather startling. If the wind and sea are ever 
wilder than we found them in those latitudes, I have 
no desire to be present at the exhibition. We fought 
the storm for twenty-four hours, and were then driven 
for refuge into a roadstead at the southern extremity 



THE NORWAY FJORDS. 353 

of Norway, near Mandal. The neighbourhood was 
interesting, if we had known it, for at Mandal Mary 
Stuart's Earl of Bothwell was imprisoned when he 
escaped from the Orkneys to Denmark. The dungeon 
where he was confined is still to be seen, and as the 
Earl was an exceptional villain, the authentic evidence 
of eyesight that he had spent an uncomfortable time in 
his exile would not have been unwelcome. But we 
discovered what we had lost when it was too late to 
profit by our information. We amused ourselves by 
wandering on shore and observing the effect of the 
change of latitude on vegetation. We found the holly 
thriving, of which in the north we had not seen a trace, 
and the hazel bushes had ripe nuts on them. There 
was still a high sea the next day; but we made thirty 
miles along the coast to Arendal, an advanced thriving 
town of modern aspect built in a sheltered harbour, 
with broad quays, fine buildings, and a gay parade. It 
was almost dark when we entered ; and the brilliant 
lights and moving crowds and carriages formed a singu- 
lar contrast to the unfinished scenes of unregenerate 
nature which we had just left. The Norse nature, too, 
hard and rugged as it may be, cannot resist the effect 
of its occupations. Aristotle observes that busy sea 
towns are always democratic. Norway generally, though 
Republican, is intensely Conservative. The landowners, 
who elect most of the representatives, walk in the ways 
of their fathers, and have the strongest objection to new 
ideas. Arendal, I was told, sends to Parliament an 
eloquent young Radical, the admired of all the news- 

A A 



354 THE NORWAY FJORDS. 

papers. There is, I believe, 1 no present likelihood that 
he will bring about a revolution. But there is no 
knowing when the king is an absentee. We spent one 
night at Arendal. In the morning the storm had left 
us, and before sunset we were at anchor at Christiania. 
It was Sunday. The weather was warm, the water 
smooth, the woody islands which surround and shelter 
the anchorage were glowing in gold and crimson. 
Christiania, a city of domes and steeples, lay before 
us with its fleets of steamers and crowded shipping. 
Hundreds of tiny yachts and pleasure-boats were 
glancing round us. There is no sour Sabbatarianism 
in Norway. One of the islands is a kind of Cremorne. 
When night fell the music of the city band came fitfully 
across the water ; blue lights blazed and rockets flashed 
into the sky with their flights of crimson stars. It was 
a scene which we had not expected in these northern 
regions ; but life can have its enjoyments even above 
the sixtieth parallel. 

There is much to be seen in Christiania. There is 
a Parliament house and a royal palace, and picture 
galleries and botanical gardens, and a museum of 
antiquities, and shops where articles of native work- 
manship can be bought by Englishmen at three times 
their value, and ancient swords and battleaxes, and 
drinking-horns and rings and necklaces, genuine, at 
present, for all I know to the contrary, but capable of 



1 Written in 1881. The movement for separation from Sweden baa 
advanced rapidly in the last ten years. 



THE NORWAY FJORDS. 355 

imitation, and likely in these days of progress to be 
speedily imitated. If the Holy Coat of Treves has 
been multiplied by ten, why should there not be ten 
swords of Olaf Tryggveson ? But all these things are 
written of in the handbook of Mr. Murray, where the 
curious can read of them. One real wonder we saw 
and saw again at Christiania, and could not satisfy our- 
selves with seeing ; and with an account of this I shall 
end. It was a Viking's ship; an authentic vessel in 
which, while Norway was still heathen, before St. Olaf 
drilled his people into Christianity with sword and 
gallows, a Norse chief and his crew had travelled these 
same waters, and in which, when he died, he had been 
laid to rest. It had been closed in with peat, which 
had preserved the timbers. It had been recovered 
almost entire — the vessel itself, the oars, the boats, the 
remnants of the cordage, even down to the copper 
caldron in which he and his men had cooked their 
dinners ; the names, the age, the character of them all 
buried in the soil, but the proof surviving that they 
had been the contemporaries and countrymen of the 
' Danes ' who drove the English Alfred into the marshes 
of Somersetshire. 

Our yacht's company were as eager to see this extra- 
ordinary relic as ourselves. We went in a body, and 
never tired of going. It had been found fifty miles 
away, had been brought to Christiania, and had been 
given in charge to the University. A solid weather- 
proof shed had been built for it, where we could study 
its structure at our leisure. 



356 THE NORWAY FJORDS. 

The first thing that struck us all was the beauty 
of the model, as little resembling the old drawings of 
Norse or Saxon ships as the figures which do duty there 
as men resemble human beings. White, of Cowes, 
could not build a vessel with finer lines, or offering less 
resistance to the water. She was eighty feet long, and 
seventeen and a half feet beam. She may have drawn 
three feet, scarcely more, when her whole complement 
was on board. She was pierced for thirty-two oars, 
and you could see the marks on the side of the rowlocks 
where the oars had worn the timber. She had a single 
mast, stepped in the solid trunk of a tree which had 
been laid along the keel. The stump of it was still in 
the socket. Her knee timbers were strong; but her 
planks were unexpectedly slight, scarcely more than 
half an inch thick. They had been formed by careful 
splitting ; there was no sign of the action of a saw, and 
the ends of them had been trimmed off by the axe. 
They had been set on and fastened with iron nails, and 
the seams had been carefully caulked. Deck she had 
none — a level floor a couple of feet below the gunwale 
ran from stem to stern. The shields of the crew formed 
a bulwark, and it was easy to see where they had been 
fixed. Evidently, therefore, she had been a war-ship ; 
built for fighting, not for carrying cargoes. But there 
was no shelter, and could have been none ; no covered 
forecastle, no stern cabin. She stood right open fore 
and aft to wind and waves ; and though she would have 
been buoyant in a sea-way, and in the heaviest gale 
would have shipped little water, even Norsemen could 



THE NORWAY FJORDS. 357 

not have been made of such impenetrable stuff that 
they would have faced the elements with no better 
protection in any distant expedition. That those who 
sailed in her were to some extent careful of themselves 
is accidentally certain. Among the stores was a plank 
with crossbars nailed upon it, meant evidently for 
landing on a beach. One of our men, who was quick 
at inferences, exclaimed at once : ' These fellows must 
have worn shoes and stockings. If they had been bare- 
legged they would have jumped overboard and would 
not have wanted a landing-plank/ 

I conclude, therefore, that she was not the kind of 
vessel of which the summer squadrons were composed 
that came down our English Channel, but that she was 
intended either for the fjords only, or for the narrow 
waters between Norway and Sweden and Denmark at 
the mouth of the Baltic. Her rig must have been 
precisely what we had been lately seeing on the Sogne 
or Hardanger; a single large sail on a square yard fit 
for running before the wind, or with the wind slightly 
on the quarter, but useless at any closer point. The 
rudder hung over the side a few feet from the stern, a 
heavy oar with a broad blade and a short handle, shaped 
so exactly like the rudders of the Koman vessels on 
Trajan's Column, that the Norsemen, it is likely, had 
seen the pattern somewhere and copied it. 

Such is this strange remnant of the old days which 
has suddenly started into life. So vivid is the impres- 
sion which it creates, that it is almost as if some Svveyn 
or Harold in his proper person had come back among 



358 THE NORWAY FJORDS. 

us from the grave. If we were actually to see such a 
man we should be less conscious perhaps of our personal 
superiority than we are apt to imagine. A law of 
compensation follows us through our intellectual and 
mechanical progress. The race collectively knows and 
can execute immeasurably greater things than the 
Norsemen. Individually they may have been as ready 
and intelligent as ourselves. The shipwright certainly 
who laid the lines of the Yiking's galley would have 
something to teach as well as to learn in the yard of 
a modern yacht builder. 

But enough now of Norway. Our time was out ; our 
tour was over; we seated ourselves once more on our 
wishing carpet, and desired to be at Cowes ; we were 
transported thither with the care and almost the speed 
with which the genius of the lamp transported the 
palace of Aladdin ; and we felt that we had one 
superiority at least which the Viking would have 
envied us. 






NOBWAY ONCE MOKE, 



WHEN I published two years ago a sketch of a 
summer holiday in the Norway fjords I sup- 
posed that I had seen my last of Norse mountains 
and lakes, and bonder farms, and that this little record 
would be all which would remain to me of a time 
which was so delightful in the enjoyment. The poor 
'Severn/ which in 1 88 1 was our floating home, now 
lies among the krakens at the bottom of the North 
Sea, or ground to pieces by the teeth of the rocks 
which one treacherous July morning seized and 
devoured her. Faithfully the poor yacht had done 
her duty, bearing us from lake to lake and wonder 
to wonder, like Prince Ahmed's enchanted carpet. She 
had been cut off in her youth, before her engines had 
rusted or screw-shaft cracked. She had ended in 
honour, and had not been left to rot away ingloriously 
or subside into tug or tender. 

Dead, however, as was the ' Severn's ' body, the soul 
or idea of her was not dead, but in another year had 
revived again, and gathered a second body about it, 



360 NORWAY ONCE MORE. 

more beautiful than the first. In spite of Destiny, her 
owner persevered in his resolution to penetrate again 
those virgin inlets, which are yet unhaunted by tourists; 
to fish again in those waters where the trout are still 
ferce naturae, unreared in breeding ponds, and un watched 
by gamekeepers. He invited me to be once more his 
companion, and here, in consequence, is a second record 
of our wanderings, set idly down for my own pleasure. 
In one sense the whole experience was new, for in 1881 
winter stayed to spend the summer in Norway, and 
when it did not rain it snowed. In 1884, for half July 
at least, we were treated to sky and mountain which 
were dazzling in their brilliancy, and to the tropical 
temperature of which we had read in guide-books, 
hitherto with most imperfect belief. But besides, I 
have actual novelties (three at least) which deserve to 
be each in some way related — one an incident in- 
structive to English visitors in those parts, one a freak 
of nature in a landscape, the third a small idyllic figure 
of Norwegian life. If I can do justice to these, or even 
to either of them, I flatter myself that I shall not be 
reproached with being tedious. They will come in 
their places, and I will note each as I arrive at it. 

We were going to amuse ourselves — to fish, perhaps, 
in the first instance, but not entirely to fish. We had 
no river of our own. The best salmon streams were all 
let, and we had to depend on the hospitality of the 
native proprietors. And of the brown trout, which are 
so large and so abundant in the inland waters, there 
are none in those which communicate with the fjords, 



NORWAY ONCE MORE. 361 

for they are eaten up by their large relations from the 
sea, which annually spend the autumn there. We 
meant to loiter at our pleasure among the large 
estuaries while the woods were still green and the 
midnight sun was still shining on the snow peaks ; to 
anchor where we could find bottom, which in those long 
water-filled crevasses is usually out of cable reach ; in 
the way of fishing, to take what might offer itself, 
and be as happy with a little as with much. Our 
party was small — our host, myself, and my son A., who 
had just done with the University, and had his first 
acquaintance to make with the Salmonidse. 

We steamed out of Harwich in the first grey of 
morning on June 27. The engines waking into life, 
and the rattling of the anchor chains, disturbed our 
dreams; but we sank to sleep again under the even 
pulsation of the screw. When we came on deck we 
were far out in the North Sea, the water shining like 
oil, the engines going a hundred to the minute, our 
head pointing as on our first expedition to Udsire 
Light, 500 miles N-N.E. of us, and the yacht rushing 
steadily on at an accurate nine knots. Yacht life is 
active idleness — we have nothing to do, and we do it. 
Vessels come in sight and pass out of it. We examine 
them with our binoculars, ascertain what they are and 
whither they are bound. We note the water, and judge 
the depth of it by the colour. We have the chart 
before us; we take our observations, and prick down 
our position upon it with a precision which can be 
measured by yards. We lie on sofas and read novels ; 



362 NORWAY ONCE MORE. 

I read a translation, in MS., which our entertainer 
himself was just completing, of a Norse novel, a story 
of an old rough sea captain who in an ill day for him- 
self fell among the Methodists, had his tough heart 
nearly broken by them, and recovered only his wits and 
his native strength of soul when his life was leaving his 
body. When we tire of our studies we overhaul our 
fishing tackle, knot casting lines, and splice new traces. 
Our host himself is an experienced fisherman. His 
skill in this department is inherited. He tells us a 
story of his great-grandfather, who, when he could walk 
no longer, for gout and rheumatism, fished from the 
back of a steady old cart-horse, and had the mane and 
tail of his charger shaved off to prevent his flies from 
catching in them. 

At midday we see a smack ahead of us making 
signals. She lowers a boat. We stop our engines and 
the boat comes alongside, with three as choice specimens 
of English sea ruffians as eye had ever rested on. They 
had mackerel to dispose of. They wanted to exchange 
their mackerel for schnapps. They would not take 
money. It was to be spirits or no trade. They looked 
already so soaked with spirits that a gallon of alcohol 
might have been distilled out of the blood of either 
of them. They had a boy with them with a bright 
innocent laughing face. Poor little fellow, flung by the 
fates into such companionship ! They got no schnapps 
from us, and we got no mackerel. They rowed back, 
and probably, before the day was out, fell in with less 
scrupulous passers-by. 



NORWAY ONCE MORE. 363 

Our yacht is proud of her punctuality. We know 
our speed and we know our distance each withiu a 
decimal fraction. We had sent word that we should 
reach Bergen at 3 o'clock on Sunday afternoon. At 
the mouth of the fjord which leads up to the great 
emporium of the fish trade we were five minutes before 
our time, but the error was accounted for by three 
hours of a favourable tide. As we passed in we saw 
the glassy swell combing over the rock where the 
'Severn' lies buried. On that fatal morning it so 
happened that the sea was absolutely still; the 
treacherous surface was unbroken even by a line of 
foam, and she had rushed blindly upon her fate. We 
do as the wise men bid us do, waste no time in 
mourning over the unalterable past. We were not 
wrecked this time. In a few minutes we were flying 
up the low deep narrow channels between the islands 
which fringe the western side of the Scandinavian 
peninsula. The smallest boats traverse these natural 
roads without danger from wind or wave ; the largest, 
when the entrance is once passed, fear nothing from 
rock or shoal, the few dangerous spots being faithfully 
marked by perches. Instead of fog and mist and rain, 
with which Norway had last welcomed us, we saw it 
now under the softest, bluest, calmest summer sky. 
Snow was still visible on the high interior ranges, but 
in patches which were fast dissolving, the green farm- 
steads and woods and red-roofed houses gleaming as if 
we were in a land of eternal sunshine. In two hours 
we were at Bergen, the City of Hills. Twice I had 



364 NORWAY ONCE MORE. 

been there before. I had studied its markets and its 
museums, and I thought I knew what it was like. But 
Bergen itself I had never seen till now. The roof of 
cloud which had lain half down the mountain had now 
lifted off. As it was Sunday the shipyards were silent. 
The harbour was dotted over with boats, with smart 
young ladies in bright dresses and with coloured 
parasols. Steam-launches rushed to and fro. The 
merchants' villas shone white among the elms and 
limes. Brigs and schooners were resting at their 
anchors. Even the huge and hideous Hull steamers 
suggested life and prosperous energy. ' Have you many 
rich people here?' I asked of a citizen who came on 
board. ' Not rich,' he said, ' but plenty who can have 
everything they wish for/ In Norway too they have at 
last caught the plague of politics. Parties run high, 
and Bergen is for progress and Radicalism : but Radicals 
there, as the same gentleman explained to me, would 
be called Conservatives in England; they want ministers 
responsible to the Storthing, economy in the Govern- 
ment, and stricter adherence to the lines of the 
Constitution — that is all. We landed and heard the 
Lutheran evening service at the cathedral, which has 
been lately repaired — the wave of church restoration 
having spread even to Norway. 

We gave one clear day to Bergen, and on July 2, with 
pilot on board, we lifted anchor and sped away through 
the inland channels up north to the Sogne Fjord. We 
had no clear route laid out for us. Our object, as 
before, was to find quiet nooks or corners where we 



NORWAY ONCE MORE. 365 

could stay as long as we pleased, with the yacht for 
quarters, go ashore, fish, botanise, geologise, and make 
acquaintance with the natives and their ways. The 
Sogne runs up into the heart of the Giant Mountains 
— the home of the Trolls and Jotuns ; the shores on 
either side rising sheer out of the narrow channel ; the 
great glaciers, showing between the rents of the crags, 
four thousand feet above us, pouring out their torrents 
of melted ice, and in such sultry weather as we were 
then experiencing tinting the lakes with blue. Our 
Bergen friends had marked out a few places which 
they thought might answer for us, and we tried them 
one after the other. We saw scenery of infinite variety 
— now among precipices so vast that the yacht seemed 
dwarfed into a cock-boat; now in sunny bays with 
softer outlines, where the moraines, left by the ice, 
were covered with thriving homesteads, pretty villages 
with white church and manse and rounded pine woods. 
There, for the most part, are the homes of the Norway 
peasantry. Eleven-twelfths of the whole surface of the 
country is rock or glacier or forest, uncultivated, un- 
inhabitable by living creature, brute or human. But 
the Norwegian makes the most of the stinted gifts 
which Nature has allowed him. Wherever there is a 
rood of soil which will feed cattle or grow an oat-crop, 
there his hand is busy. If he cannot live there, he 
carries over his sheep and cows in his boats to feed. 
On the ancient lake-bottoms, formed when the fjords 
were filled with ice, and left dry when the water fell, 
there are tracts of land which would be called rich and 



366 NORWAY ONCE MORE. 

beautiful in any country in the world. In such spots, 
and in such weather, we might well be tempted to 
linger! Tourists make long journeys to see Winder- 
mere or Loch Katrine. We had Windermere and Loch 
Katrine ten times magnified at every turn of the wind- 
ing Sogne — we could choose as we pleased between 
desolate grandeur and the gentler homes of industry 
and human life. 

Any one of these places might have suited us had 
we been obliged to stay there, but we had free choice 
to go anywhere, and we wanted all the various charms 
combined. We wanted a good harbour. We wanted 
trout or salmon for ourselves, and sea-fish for the crew, 
fresh meat being hard to come by. At one place we 
were promised a sheep, if the bears had not eaten it. 
I believe in that instance we did get the sheep, being 
a lean, scraggy thing which the bears had despised; 
but we had many mouths to feed, and the larder could 
not be left to chance. The flowers everywhere were 
most beautiful; the wild roses, which in 1881 had been 
checked by the cold, were still short-lived, but the 
fullest, reddest, and most abundant that I had ever 
seen. The long daylight intensifies the colours. The 
meadows were enamelled with harebells. On the moist 
rocks on the lake sides grew gigantic saxifrages, pure 
white, eighteen inches high. On a single stem I 
counted three hundred blossoms, and they were so 
hardy that one plant lived in full flower for a fortnight 
in a glass on our cabin table. There were curious 
aspects of human life too. One night, July 2 — Su 



NORWAY ONCE MORE. 367 

John's Day by the old reckoning — as we lay at anchor 
in a gorge, which from the land must have been in- 
accessible, we saw a large fire blazing, and figures 
leaping through the flame. It was the relic of a 
custom, once wide as the Northern hemisphere, on the 
festival of the summer solstice, old as the Israelitish 
prophet who saw the children passed through the fire 
to Moloch. I observed the same thing forty-three 
years ago in the market-place at Killarney. Thousands 
of years it has survived, down to these late times of 
ours, in which, like much besides, it will now end 
— dissolved in the revolutionary acids of scientific 
civilisation. 

These things had their interest, but we were still 
dissatisfied, and we flew from spot to spot in a way to 
make the pilot think us maniacs. ' Tout va bien/ said 
the Paris Terrorist in 1793; ' mais le pain manque.' 
All was well with us, but fish were wanting ; and when 
we had wasted a week of our month in following the 
directions of our acquaintance at Bergen, we decided 
to lose no more time in exploring, and to make for 
quarters of which we had ourselves had experience on 
our first visit. I shall mention no names, for one of 
these places is a secret of our own, and we do not wish 
them to become tourist-haunted. No road goes near 
them, nor ever can, for they are protected on the land 
side by mountains steeper and vaster than the walls of 
Rasselas's enchanted valley. But yacht-visitors might 
reach them, nay, have actually reached, not the one 
I speak of, but another, leaving an unpleasant taste 



3 68 NORWAY ONCE MORE. 

behind them. I will not extend their opportunities of 
making Englishmen unpopular. 

Well, then, to decide was to execute. A few hours 
later we found ourselves anchored in a landlocked bay 
which I will call for convenience' sake Bruysdal. There 
are fifty Bruysdals in Norway, and this is not one of 
them. That is all which I need say. It forms the 
head of a deep inlet, well stocked with dabs and 
haddock, and whiting, and wolf-fish and other monsters. 
The landscape is at once grand and gentle; mighty 
snow-capped mountains cleft into gorges so deep and 
dark that the sun, save in the height of summer, can 
never look into them, while on the immediate shores 
rich meadow-land and grassy undulating hills stretch 
along the fjord for miles; and from the estate of a 
prosperous yeoman who rules paternally over his moun- 
tain valley, a river runs in near our anchorage, which, 
after leaving a lake half a mile from the sea, winds 
down with an ever-flowing stream, through heathery 
pine-clad slopes and grassy levels covered with wild 
roses and bilberries. The cuckoos were calling in the 
woods as we came up ; widgeon and wild duck were 
teaching their young broods to take care of themselves ; 
oyster-catchers flew to and fro — they have no fear of 
men in a place where no one cares to hurt them. Boats 
with timber were passing down the river to a saw-mill 
opposite the mouth. The lake out of which it flows is 
two miles long, and ends in a solitary glen, closed in by 
precipices at the head and on either side. There was 
beauty here, and grandeur, with food of all kinds, from 






NORWAY ONCE MORE. 369 

mutton to bilberries, now ripe and as large as outdoor 
grapes. Above all, we knew by past experience that 
sea- trout swarmed in the lake, and trout in the river. 
The owner's acquaintance we had made before, and the 
old man, learning from the pilot who we were, came on 
board at once with his son and the schoolmaster to pay 
his respects. He himself was hale and stout, age 
perhaps about sixty ; with dark hair which as yet had 
no grey streaks in it ; in manner very much that of a 
gentleman doing the honours of his country and his 
dominions with rough dignity. His lake, his river, all 
that he had, he gave us free use of. The fish had not 
come up in any number yet, but perhaps there might 
be some. He accepted a glass of wine, being temperate 
but not severely abstemious. The younger ones touched 
nothing of that kind— To-tallers they called them- 
selves. They were two fine-looking men, but without 
the father's geniality, and with a slight tinge of self- 
righteousness. The interest of the moment was a bear 
which they had just killed among them, having caught 
him committing murder among the sheep. As the 
flocks increase, the bears multiply along with them; 
and the shooting one is an event to be made much of. 
This particular offender's head came home with us, 
swinging in the rigging, and looked so savage, grinning 
there, as much to reduce the pleasure of the crew in 
going ashore among the bilberries. 

At Bruysdal all our desires were at last fulfilled. 
The steward could get his milk and mutton. The sea 
fish swarmed. The spot itself combined the best 

B B 



37o NORWAY ONCE 310 RE. 

beauties of the Norwegian landscapes — wild nature 
and thriving human history. In the lake, as our enter- 
tainer had said, there were not many fish, but there 
were enough. The water was as clear as the air. A 
tropical sun shone fiercely on its windless surface, 
conditions neither of them especially favourable for 
salmon- fishing ; but, rowing along the shores, on the 
edge 'between the deep and the shallow/ with our 
phantom minnows, we caught what satisfied, without 
surfeiting, the appetite for destruction ; salmon-peel, 
sewin, sea-trout, or whatever we pleased to call them, 
from three to nine pounds weight, gallant fellows that 
would make the reel spin and scream. And then the 
luncheon, never to be forgotten, on biscuits soaked in 
the ice-cold stream, the purple bilberries, the modest 
allowance from the whisky flask, and the pijDe to follow, 
in the heather under the shade of a pine-tree or a 
juniper, surrounded by ferns and flowers of exquisite 
variety. I should have no good opinion of any man 
who, in such a scene, had anything left to wish for. 

One day there was another bear-hunt. Three sheep 
had been killed in the night again, in the glen at the 
head of the lake. The bonder's people turned out, and 
the cries of the beaters among the crags, and the cow- 
horns echoing from cliff to cliff, brought back memories 
of old days, on the middle lake at Killarney; when 
the Herberts reigned at Mucross, and the bay of the 
bloodhounds was heard on the hills, and the driven 
deer would take the water, and meet his end from a 
rifle bullet, and the huntsman would wind his death- 



NORWAY ONCE MORE. 371 

note on the buffle. Beautiful ! all that was, and one 



i s j 



cannot think of it without regret that it is gone. But 
it was artificial, not natural. Our Norway bear-hunt 
was nature and necessity, the genuine chase of a 
marauding and dangerous animal. This time unfor- 
tunately it was not successful. The brown villains had 
stolen off through a pass in the mountains, and escaped 
the penalties of their sins. 

Settled down as we were in Bruysdal we did not 
hurry ourselves, and took our pleasure deliberately. 
One evening after dinner our host and A. went to the 
lake ; I stayed behind, and was rowed about by one of 
the crew with a fly rod in the mouth of the river. The 
soft midnight gloaming, the silence broken only by the 
late call of the cuckoo in the woods, made me careless 
about the trout, and, after catching four or five, I pre- 
ferred to talk to my companion. As a seaman he had 
been all over the world. He had been up the great 
rivers in the tropics, had seen pythons and alligators 
there, and was rather disappointed to find no alligators 
in the fjords. Alligators, I explained to him, would 
find a difficulty in getting a living there. In the winter 
they would be frozen into logs, and would be found 
dead when they thawed again, and on the whole they 
preferred a warm climate. As the thermometer had 
been standing at 8o° that day in our deck cabin, and 
was 70 at that moment though it was midnight, my 
account was clearly unsatisfactory, but he dropped the 
subject, and from alligators travelled to human beings. 
He admired his own countrymen, but could not abso- 



372 NORWAY ONCE MORE. 

lutely approve of them. He had seen savages little if 
at all superior to apes, but nowhere had he fallen in 
with men of any description, who made such brutes of 
themselves as Englishmen and Scotchmen when the 
drink was in them. He himself had drunk water only 
for fifteen years, and intended to keep to it. I could 
not but admit that it might be so. Those precious 
beauties whom we had just seen in the North Sea were 
illustrations not to be gainsaid. 

One difficulty was to know when to go to bed. The 
sun might set, but the glow lasted till it rose again ; 
and the cool night air was so delicious and so invigor- 
ating that to sleep was a waste of our opportunities. 
That evening when I went to my cabin, I stood looking 
out through the port-hole on the pink flushed hills and 
water, the full moon just rising behind a hollow between 
the high mountains and pouring a stream of gold upon 
the fjord. Now would be the time, I thought, if any 
Nixie would rise out of the water and sing a song to 
me of the times long ago. It would have been a rash 
experiment once. The knight who listened to the 
Nixie's song forgot country, and home, and wife, and 
child, plunged wildly into the waters, and was borne 
away in the white arms of the seducing spirit, never to 
be seen on earth again. But the knight was young — 
and I, with the blood creeping slowly in my old veins, 
felt that for my part I could listen safely, and should 
like for once to hear such a thing. Alas ! as I stood at 
the window there came no Nixie, but the pale figure 
floated before me of , first as she was in her beauty 



NORWAY ONCE MORE. 373 

five-and-forty years ago, then dissolving into the still 
fair, but broken and aged, woman as I had last seen 
her, fading away out of a life which had blighted the 
promise of the morning. Her widowed daughter sleeps 
beside her, having lost first her young husband and 
then the mother whom she worshipped. The Nixies 
are silent. The Trolls work unseen among the copper 
veins in the mountain chasms, and leave unvexed the 
children of men. Valhalla is a dream, and Balder has 
become a solar myth; but ghosts still haunt old eyes 
which have seen so many human creatures flit across 
the stage, play their parts, sad or joyful, and vanish as 
they came. 

We stayed a whole week at Bruysdal. There was 
another spot which we knew of, as wild, as inaccessible, 
and as fertile, when we tried it last, in the desired 
sea-trout; and besides sea-trout there were char — not 
miserable little things like those that are caught in 
Derwentwater and Crummock, but solid two and three 
pounders that would fight for their lives like gentlemen. 

Across the mountain to Elversdale (that, again, is 
not the right name) an eagle might fly in half an hour, 
but he would fly over sheets of glacier and peak and 
ridges six thousand feet high. In fact, for human feet 
there was no road from Bruysdal thither, and the way 
round by water was nearly a hundred miles. But what 
were a hundred miles to the fiery dragon in the yacht's 
engines ? All he asks for is a ton or two of coal, and 
he thinks as little of taking you a hundred miles as 
you think yourself of an afternoon walk. We had the 



374 NORWAY ONCE MORE. 

ship's washing, too, to pick up on the way, and, besides 
the washing, the letters and newspapers which had 
been accumulating for a fortnight — something to amuse 
us in the few hours which would be required for our 
transportation. After a week or two's absence from 
London one finds oneself strangely indifferent to what 
seems so important when one is in the middle of it. 
Speeches in Parliament remind one of the scuffling 
of kites and crows which Milton talks of. On this 
occasion, however, we had all of us a certain curiosity 
to hear what had become of the Franchise Bill, 
especially as our host is a sound hereditary Liberal, 
sounder and stauncher a great deal than I am, and had 
duly paired on the Government side before he sailed. 
We bore the news, when it reached us, with extra- 
ordinary equanimity. Our appetite for luncheon was 
not affected. The crew did not mutiny, though three- 
fourths of them must have been among the two millions 
expectant of votes. For my own particular, I was 
conscious of pleasure greater than I had ever expected 
to receive from any political incident in the remainder 
of my life. In the first place, it is always agreeable to 
see men behave courageously. The Peers had refused 
to walk this time through Coventry with halters about 
their necks. In the next, if they persevered, it might, 
one way or another, bring another sham to an end. 
The House of Lords had seemed to be something, and 
they were becoming a nothing. The English Sovereign, 
too, is in a position not altogether befitting a human 
being with an immortal soul. No man or woman ought 



NORWAY ONCE MORE. 375 

to be forced to say this or that, to profess to approve of 
what he or she detests, in obedience to majorities in 
the House of Commons. Some day, perhaps, an English 
Sovereign will be found to say : J If you want an orna- 
mental marionette at the top of you, to dance at your 
bidding, you must find some one else. I, for one, 
decline to figure any longer in that character. I will 
be a reality, or I will not be at all/ In constitutional 
countries those who hold high offices do tend to drift 
into a similar marionette condition. A dean and 
chapter who receive a mandate to choose A. B. as their 
bishop, who invite divine assistance to help them to 
elect a fit person, and then duly appoint the said A. B., 
they too are not to be envied. Sovereigns and high 
persons of all kinds in such situations are idols set up 
in high places, with the form of dignity and without 
the power ; and if we must have idols they should be 
wood or stone, or gutta-percha, as more flexible, not 
human creatures, with blood running in the veins of 
them. I had been very sorry to see the English peers, 
ostensibly the flower of the whole nation, lapsing 
gradually into a similar gilded degradation, the lay 
lords sinking to the level of the spiritual, and by the 
wise to be mentioned only with a smile. They had at 
last stood fast, though, alas, it was only for a time. 
They had recovered the respect of all honest men in 
doing so, and seemed on the way to become honest 
men themselves again in one shape or another, and not 
despised humbugs. 

I have high honour for the Peers ; I think them an 



376 NORWAY ONCE MORE. 

excellent institution, political and social, but one must 
draw a line somewhere, and I draw one at dukes. From 
their cradle upwards all persons, things, circumstances, 
combine to hide from dukes that they are mortal, subject 
to limitations like the rest of us. A duke, at least an 
English duke, though he may be called a peer, yet is a 
peer only by courtesy. He has no social equal. He is 
at the summit of the world, and has no dignity beyond 
his own to which he can aspire. He grows up in 
possession of everything which the rest of mankind are 
strivinof after. In his own immediate surroundings, on 
his vast estates, among his multitudinous dependents, 
he has only to will to be obeyed. When he goes out 
among his fellow-creatures, they bow before so great a 
presence with instinctive deference. In him, offences 
are venial which would be fatal to an ordinary man. 
The earth, so far as he is able to know anything of it, 
is a place where others have to struggle, but where he 
has only to desire. To do without what at any moment 
he happens to wish for, which moralists consider so 
important a part of education, is a form of discipline 
denied to a duke from his cradle, and if the moralists 
are right he is so much the worse for the want of it. 

I think we could do without dukes. That is the 
only reform which I wish for in the Upper House. At 
any rate, they are over large figures for a quiet Norwe- 
gian valley. ' There came three Dukes a-riding.' 1 
Several dukes have looked in at Elversdale of late 



1 Neither of these was the good duke alluded to at page 329. 



NORWAY ONCE MORE. 377 

years in their floating palaces. They have gone for 
sport there, as in fact we were doing ourselves, and it is 
hard to say that they had not as good a right as we had. 
Bat the Norse proprietors, at least some of them, are 
Republicans, and are not altogether pleased to see these 
lordly English looking in upon their quiet homes. The 
shores of the fjord, the rivers, the lakes, are their pro- 
perty. They are liberal and hospitable ; the land they 
live in is their own; but they are courteous and gra- 
cious, and have been willing hitherto to allow their 
visitors all fair opportunities of entertaining themselves. 
They are aware, however (it cannot be a secret to 
them), that if a Norwegian, or any stranger, American, 
French, or German, travelling without introduction in 
Scotland, were to ask for a day's sporting in a preserved 
forest or salmon river, he would not only be refused, but 
would be so refused as to make him feel that his request 
was an impertinence. The Lord of the soil in Norway 
perhaps may occasionally ask himself why he should 
be expected to be more liberal. His salmon and trout 
are an important part of his winter provision. He 
nets them, salts and stores them for the long nights and 
short days, when the lakes are frozen, and the valleys 
are full of snow, and there is no food for man or beast, 
save what is laid up in summer. Why should he give 
it away ? 

There are two rivers in Elversdale and two sets of 
lakes, the respective valleys meeting at the head of the 
fjord, where on a vast and prettily- wooded moraine 
there stands, as usual, a white church, the steeple of 



378 NORWAY ONCE MORE. 

which shows far up along the glens, the scattered pea- 
sants gathering thither in their boats on Sundays. Two 
great owners divide the domain, one of them having 
the best fishing. It was in one of his lakes close to the 
fjord that in 1881 we filled our baskets, and now hoped 
to fill them again. For this lake, at what we considered 
an unusually high price, we got leave; but we soon 
found that it had been given us in irony. The sultry 
weather had melted the edges of the great glacier which 
we could see from our deck. The ice-water, pouring- 
down in a cataract, tinted the limpid water into a colour 
like soap-suds, and not a fish would take. Round and 
round the lake we rowed, with wearisome repetition ; 
nothing came to our minnows. In the boats we sat, 
tormented, ourselves, by flies such as are seen nowhere 
but in Norway. There is one as big as a drone, and 
rather like one, but with a green head, and a pair of 
nippers in it that under a magnifying-glass are a wonder 
to look at. This, I suppose, is the wretch described by 
' Three in Norway/ who speak of a fly that takes a piece 
out of you, and flies to the next rock to eat it. We 
were tortured, but caught nothing save a few tiny char 
which ventured out upon the shallows when the mon- 
sters were lying torpid. We soon saw how it was. 
Where we were there was nothing to be done, but two 
miles up the valley, above the hay meadows and potato 
fields, was another lake into which no glacier water 
ran, splendidly rich in char and trout. There flies 
might torment, but there was at least sport — legitimate, 
ample, and subject to no disappointment. Thither we 






NORWAY ONCE MORE. 379 

applied for leave to go, and (it was perhaps the first 
time that such a thing ever happened to any English- 
man in that country) we met with a flat refusal. The 
owner was tired of being called upon to provide sport 
for strangers of whom he knew nothing. He gave no 
reason ; when we pressed for one he answered quietly 
that the fish were his, and that he preferred to keep 
them for himself. In our first impatience we anathe- 
matised him to ourselves as a brute, but we reflected 
that he was doing only what every one of us at home 
in possession of a similar treasure would do as a matter 
of course. England is more advanced than Norway, 
but English principles and habits are making way 
there ; that is all. This is the first of my three 
novelties. 

By the proprietor of the other glen and the other 
lakes we were entertained more graciously. He 
remembered us. He and his family had visited the 
drowned yacht. His boys had been fed with sugar- 
plums, his daughters had been presented with books 
and coloured prints, which still hung about his farm- 
house. His waters were not the best ; but the scenery 
about them was at any rate most beautiful, and river, 
lakes, boats, all that he had, was placed at our disposal. 
Three lovely days we spent there — rocks and moun- 
tains, trees and cataracts, the belts of forest, and the 
high peaks above them soaring up into the eternal blue. 
These were our surroundings, changing their appearance 
every hour as the shadows shifted with the moving sun. 
The rare trout rose at the fly, the rarer salmon-trout 



3 So NO A WAY ONCE MOKE. 

ran at the phantoms at distant intervals. In the hot 
midday we would land and seek shade from nut bush 
or alder. The ice-cold rivulets trickled down out of the 
far-off snow. The cuckoos called in the woods. The 
wild roses clustered round us, crimson buds and pale 
pink flowers shining against the luxuriant green of the 
leaves. The wild campanulas hung their delicate heads 
along the shores, fairest and daintiest of all the wild 
flowers of nature, like pieces of the azure heaven itself 
shaped into those cups and bells. The bilberry clus- 
tered among the rocks, hanging out its purple fruit to 
us to gather as we sat. All this was perfectly delight- 
ful, and it was only the brutal part of our souls that 
remained a little discontented because we had not fish 
enough, and sighed for the yet more perfect Eden from 
which we were excluded. 

Sunday came, and it was very pretty to see, on the 
evening before and in the early morning, the boats 
streaming up the fjord and down from the inland lakes. 
One boat passed the yacht, rowed by ten stalwart young 
women, who handled their oars like Saltash fishwives. 
With a population so scattered, a single priest has two 
or more churches to attend to at considerable distances, 
pastors being appointed according to the numbers of 
the flock, and not the area they occupy. Thus at 
Elversdale there was a regular service only on alternate 
Sundays, and this Sunday it was not Elversdale's turn. 
But there was a Samling — a gathering for catechising 
and prayer — at our bonder's house, where the good man 
himself, or some itinerant minister, officiated. Several 



NORWAY ONCE MORE. 381 

hundreds must have collected, the children being in 
the largest proportion. The Norse people are quiet, 
old-fashioned Lutherans, who never read a newspaper, 
and have never heard of a doubt about the truth of 
what their fathers believed. When the meeting was 
over, many of them who were curious to see an English 
yacht and its occupants came on board. The owner 
welcomed the elders at the gangway, talked to them 
in their own tongue, and showed them over the ship. 

A had handful s of sugar-plums for the little ones. 

They were plain-featured for the most part, with fair 
hair and blue eyes — the men in strong homespun 
broadcloth, the women in black serge, with a bright 
sash about the waist, and a shawl over the shoulders 
with bits of modest embroidery at the corners. They 
were perfectly well-behaved, rational, simple, unself- 
conscious, a healthy race in mind and body whom it 
was pleasant to see. I could well understand what the 
Americans mean when they say that, of all the colonists 
who migrate to them, the Norse are the best— and 
many go. Norway is as full as it can hold, and the 
young swarms who in old days roved out in their pirate- 
ships over France and England and Ireland now pass 
peaceably to the Ear West. 

Our time was slipping away, we had but a few days 
left. Instead of exploring new regions we agreed to go 
back once more to Bruysdal, and its trout, and its bears. 
We knew that there we should be welcome again. 
And at Elversdale, too, we were leaving friends. Even 
the stern old fellow who had been so sulky might have 



382 NORWAY ONCE MORE. 

opened his arms if we had stayed a little longer. But 
we did not put him to the test. The evening before 
we sailed, our landlord came to take leave, bringing his 
wife with him, a sturdy little woman with a lady's 
manners under a rough costume. He was presented 
with a few pounds of best Scotch oatmeal, a tin of 
coffee for his old mother, and a few other delicacies in 
true Homeric style. He in turn came next morning at 
daybreak, as the anchor was coming up, with a fresh- 
run salmon, which he had just taken out of his trammels. 
We parted with warm hopes expressed that we might 
one day meet again; and the next quiet Englishman 
who goes thither will find all the waters open to him as 
freely as they used to be. 

Yacht life gives ample leisure. I had employed 
part of mine in making sketches. One laughs at one's 
extraordinary performances a day or two after one has 
completed them. Yet the attempt is worth making. 
It teaches one to admire less grudgingly the work of 
real artists who have conquered the difficulties. Books 
are less trying to vanity, for one is producing nothing 
of one's own, and submitting only to be interested or 
amused, if the author can succeed in either. One's 
appetite is generally good on these occasions, and one 
can devour anything ; but in the pure primitive element 
of sea, and mountains, and unprogressive peasantry I 
had become somewhat fastidious. I tried a dozen 
novels one after the other without success ; at last, 
perhaps the morning we left Elversdale, I found on the 
library shelves ' Le Pere Goriot.' I had read a certain 



NORWAY ONCE MORE. 3S3 

quantity of ( Balzac ' at other times, in deference to the 

high opinion entertained of him. N , a fellow of 

Oriel and once member for Oxford, I remembered 
insisting to me that there was more knowledge of 
human nature in 'Balzac' than in Shakespeare. I 
had myself observed in the famous novelist a knowledge 
of a certain kind of human nature which Shakespeare 
let alone — a nature in which healthy vigour had been 
corrupted into a caricature by highly seasoned artificial 
civilisation. Hothouse plants, in which the flowers had 
lost their grace of form and natural beauty, and had 
gained instead a poison-loaded and perfumed luxuriance, 
did not exist in Shakespeare's time, and if they had they 
would probably not have interested him. However, I 
had not read 'Le Pere Goriot,' and as I had been 
assured that it was the finest of Balzac's works, I sat 
down to it and deliberately read it through. My first 
impulse after it was over was to plunge into the sea to 
wash myself. As we were going ten knots, there were 
objections to this method of ablution, but I felt that I 
had been in abominable company. The book seemed 
to be the very worst ever written by a clever man. 

But it, and N 's reference to Shakespeare, led me 

into a train of reflections. Le Pere Goriot, like King 
Lear, has two daughters. Like Lear, he strips himself 
of his own fortune to provide for them in a distin- 
guished manner. He is left to poverty and misery, 
while his daughters live in splendour. Why is Lear so 
grand ? Why is Le Pere Goriot detestable ? In the 
first place, all the company in Balzac are bad. Le 



384 NORWAY ONCE MORE. 

Pere Goriot is so wrapped up in his delightful children, 
that their very vices charm him, and their scented 
boudoirs seem a kind of Paradise. Lear, in the first 
scene of the play, acts and talks like an idiot, but still 
an idiot with a moral soul in him. Take Lear's own 
noble nature from him, take Kent away, and Edgar, 
and the fool, and Cordelia — and the actors in the play, 
it must be admitted, are abominable specimens of 
humanity — yet even so, leaving the story as it might 
have been if Marlowe had written it instead of Shake- 
speare, Goneril and Kegan would still have been terrible, 
while the Paris dames of fashion are merely loathsome. 
What is the explanation of the difference ? Partly, I 
suppose, it arises from the comparative intellectual 
stature of the two sets of women. Strong natures and 
weak may be equally wicked. The strong are interest- 
ing, because they have daring and force. You fear 
them as you fear panthers and tigers. You hate, but 
you admire. M. Balzac's heroines have no intellectual 
nature at all. They are female swine out of Circe's sty ; 
as selfish, as unscrupulous as any daughter of Adam 
could conveniently be, but soft, and corrupt, and 
cowardly, and sensual ; so base and low that it would 
be a compliment to call them devils. I object to being 
brought into the society of people in a book whom I 
would shut my eyes rather than see in real life. Goneril 
and Regan would be worth looking at in a cage in the 
Zoological Gardens. One would have no curiosity to 
stare at a couple of dames caught out of Coventry 
Street or the Quadrant. From Shakespeare to Balzac, 






NORWAY ONCE MORE. 385 

from the 1 6th century to the 19th, we have been pro- 
gressing to considerable purpose. If the state of litera- 
ture remains as it has hitherto been, the measure of our 
moral condition, Europe has been going ahead with a 
vengeance. I put out the taste of ' Le Pere Goriot ' 
with ' Persuasion.' Afterwards I found a book really 
worth reading, with the uninviting title of c Adventures 
in Sport and War,' the author of it a young Marquis de 
Compiegne, a ruined representative of the old French 
noblesse, who appears first as a penniless adventurer 
seeking his fortune in America as a bird-stuffer, and 
tempted by an advertisement into the swamps of Florida 
in. search of specimens, a beggarly experience, yet told 
with naiveM and simplicity, truth and honour surviving 
by the side of absolute helplessness. Afterwards we 
find our Marquis in France again, fighting as a private 
in the war with Germany, and taken prisoner at Sedan ; 
and again in the campaign against the Commune, at 
the taking of Paris, and the burning of the Tuileries — 
a tragic picture, drawn, too, with the entire unconscious- 
ness of the condition to which' Balzac, Madame Sand, 
and the rest of the fraternity had dragged down the 
French nation. 

But by this time we are back in Bruysdal, and I 
come now to the second of my three incidents in which 
the reader was to be interested — a specimen of what 
Norway can do when put upon its mettle in the way of 
landscape effect. The weather had changed. When we 
left, the temperature in our deck cabin was 8o°. The 

mercury in our barometer stood at 30 and 3-loths. 

c c 



386 NORWAY ONCE MORE. 

When we returned the pressure had relaxed to 29, while 
the temperature had fallen nearly forty degrees. Our 
light flannels had gone back to the drawers, and the 
thickest woollens would hardly keep out the cold. The 
rain was falling as in a universal shower bath, lashing 
into bubbles the surface of the fjord. The cataracts 
were roaring down ; the river was in a flood, the shore 
and the trees dimly visible through the descending 
torrent. Here, if ever, was a fishing day for those who 
were not afraid of being dissolved like sugar. Our host 
challenged us to venture, and we were ashamed to 
hesitate. In huge boots and waterproof and oilskin 
hats (may the wretch who made my mackintosh for me 
in London be sent to the unpleasant place and punished 
appropriately) we were rowed up into the lake, sent out 
our spinners, and were soon in desperate battle each 
with our respective monster, half-blinded by wind and 
rain. On days like this the largest fish roam the waters 
like hungry pike. We had two hours of it. Flesh and 
blood could stand no more. We made one circuit of the 
lake ; neither we nor the boatmen could face a second, 
and we went home with our spoils. Enough said about 
that. Now for my landscape. On one side of Bruysdal 
the mountains rise from the water in a series of preci- 
pices to the snow-line, and are broken into deep wooded 
gorges. Down these the cataracts were raging; very 
fine in their way, but with nothing uncommon about 
them. The other side of the valley is formed quite 
differently. A long broad plateau of smooth unbroken 
rock ascends at a low gradient for miles, reaching event- 



NORWAY ONCE MORE. 387 

ually an equal altitude, and losing itself among the 
clouds. At the hollow where the lake lies, this plateau 
is as if broken sharply off, ending in an overhanging 
precipice perhaps a mile long, and from 300 to 400 feet 
high; higher it may be, for the scale of everything is 
gigantic, and the eye often underrates what it sees. Over 
the whole wide upper area the rain had been falling for 
hours with the fury of a tropical thunder shower. There 
being no hollows or inequalities to collect the water, and 
neither grass nor forest to absorb the flood, it ran straight 
down over the smooth slopes in an even shallow stream. 
On reaching the cliffs it fell over and scattered into spray, 
and there it seemed to hang extended over a mile of 
perpendicular rock, like a delicately transparent lace veil 
undulating in the eddies of the wind. It was a sight 
to be seen once and never to be forgotten. Water is a 
strange Proteus — now transparent as air, now a mirror, 
uow rippled and the colour of the sky. It falls in foam 
in the torrent. It is level as quicksilver, or it is broken 
into waves of infinite variety. It is ice, it is snow, it is 
rain, it is fog and cloud, to say nothing of the shapes 
it takes in organic substances. But never did I see 
it play so singular a part as when floating to and fro in 
airy drapery, with the black wet rock, showing like a 
ghost behind it. The whole valley was dim with the 
falling rain, the far mountains invisible in mist, the near 
rocks and trees drenched and dripping. Some artist of 
the Grosvenor Gallery might make a picture of the 
place as a part of Hades, and people it with moist spirits. 
In honour of our endurance and our success, and to 



383 NORWAY ONCE MOKE. 

put us in heart again for the next day, we had a bottle 
of champagne at dinner, I in silence drinking to myself 
the health of the House of Lords in general as well as 
that of our entertainer. And now I have only to relate 
the disgrace which befell myself when the next day 
came, to end what I have to say about our fishing. I 
had a precious phantom minnow, a large one which had 
come victorious out of that day's conflicts. Before put- 
ting it on again my eye was caught by the frayed look 
of the gut trace. It seemed strong when I tried it ; but 
perhaps I wished to save myself trouble, and treated it 
as Don Quixote treated his helmet the second time. 
Well, Ave started in our boat again, a hundred yards 
below the point where the river leaves the lake. We 
were rowing up the strong stream, I carelessly letting 
out my line, and in that place expecting nothing, when 
there came a crash ; the slack line was entangled round 
the reel, which could not run, the rod bent double from 
the combined weisfht of some sea-trout huger than usual 
and the rapid water. Alas ! in a moment the rod had 
straightened again, and sea-trout, phantom, and my own 
reputation as a fisherman were gone together. I could 
not get over it, and the sport had lost its charm. We 
caught several fish afterwards, and my son got one 
nearly ten pounds weight. I was glad for him, but for 
myself the spirit had gone out of me. In the afternoon, 
the river being in high order, we put our lighter rods 

together to try the pools with salmon flies. D 

caught a salmon-peel of four pounds weight. I had 
another smaller one ; afterwards scrambling along some 



NORWAY ONCE MORE. 389 

steep slippery rocks I reached a promising-looking run, 
and, letting my fly go down over it, I rose a true salmon 
and a big one. I drew back and changed my fly. A 
salmon, under such conditions, will almost always come 
again if you wait a minute or two and throw him a 
new temptation. I was looking to be consoled for my 
morning's misfortune, when at the moment a native 
boat dashed over the spot loaded with timber. My 
salmon vanished into space, and I saw him no more. 
I ought to have been disgusted. I discovered myself 
reflecting instead, that after all the salmon was better 
off as he was, and I no worse — a state of mind unper- 
mitted to a fisherman, and implying that my connection 
with the trade, now more than fifty years old, may be 
coming to an end. Alas, that all things do come to an 
end ! Life itself runs to an end. Our Norway holiday 
was running to an end, though the prettiest part of it 
was still to come. We had to look in at Bergen again 
on our way home to pick up letters, &c. Bergen was 
nearly 200 miles from us, and to break the distance Ave 
were to anchor somewhere about half-way. Our last 
day at Bruysdal was a Sunday again. We were popular 
there, and on Sunday evening we had a small fleet about 
us, with boys and girls and music. An ingenious lad 
had fitted a screw propeller of his own making to his 
boat, which he worked with a crank. With this, and 
the Norwegian flag flying, he careered round and round 
the yacht at a most respectable pace, the lads and lasses 
following in their Sunday dresses, like the nymphs and 
Tritons after Nentune's car. A boat came on board us 



390 NORWAY ONCE MORE. 

with two men in her whom we did not know. They 
had a sick relation at home, and wanted medicine. We 
gave them what we had. They innocently asked how 
much they were to pay, bringing out their pocket-books, 

and were perplexed when D laughed and told them 

1 nothing I They doubted, perhaps, the efficacy of the 
remedies. Anyhow they were gratified. The Bruysdal 
community fired a gun when we steamed away next 
day, and saluted us with their flag from the school- 
house ; there too we shall find a welcome if we ever 
return : meanwhile we were gone, for the present to see 
it no more. 

In the evening we turned into a spot which our 
pilot knew of as a quiet anchorage, which I will call 
Orlestrund. We were by this time far away from the 
mountains. We found ourselves in a soft landlocked 
bay, with green meadows and low softly-wooded hills ; 
the air was sweet with the scent of the new-mown hay ; 
there were half-a-dozen farmhouses, which seemed to 
share between them the richly-cultivated and smiling 
soil. A church stood conspicuous near the shore ; on 
one side of it was what seemed to be a school ; on the 
other, among high trees, we saw the roof and chimneys 
of the pastors house, a respectable and even superior- 
looking residence. Work for the day was over when 
we let fall our anchor. It was about eight o'clock, a 
lovely summer evening, with three hours of subdued 
daylight remaining. The boys and young men, dis- 
missed from the fields, were scattered about the bay in 
boats catohino 1 haddock and whiting. Looking round 



NORWAY ONCE MORE. 39 1 

the pretty scene we saw a group outside the gate of the 
manse, which was evidently the pastor and his family, 
himself an elderly gentleman, his wife, and six young 
ones, descending from a girl of perhaps sixteen to little 
ones just able to take care of themselves. They were 
examining the yacht, and it was easy to see what 
happened. The old couple, with the three youngest 
children, turned in to their gate and disappeared. The 
others, the eldest girl and two brothers, had got leave 
to go out in the boat and look at us, for they flew along 
the shore to their boat-house, and presently came out 
on the fjord. Not wishing to seem too curious they 
lingered awhile with their lines and caught four or five 
haddock. They then gradually drew nearer, the girl 

rowing, her two brothers in the stern. D beckoned 

to them to come closer, and then, in Norse, invited 
them on board. They were roughly dressed, not better 
perhaps than the children of the peasantry, but their 
looks were refined, their manner modest and simple, 
free alike from shyness and forwardness. The daughter 
spoke for the rest. She was tall for her years, with 
large eyes, a slight but strong figure, and features almost 

handsome. D took her round the ship. She moved 

gracefully, answered questions and asked them with as 
much ease as if she had been among friends and rela- 
tions. She kept her young brothers in order by a word, 
and in short behaved with a composure which would 
have been surprising in any girl of such an age when 
thrown suddenly among strangers. She asked if we 
had ladies on board, and seemed disappointed, but not 



3Q2 NORWAY ONCE MORE. 

the least disturbed, when we told her that there were 
only ourselves. Presently she began to speak English, 
with a fair accent too, better than most French or 
Germans ever arrive at. We asked her if she had been 
in England. She had never been away from Orlestrund. 
She had taught herself English, she said quite simply, 

' from book.' D accuses her of having asked 

him if he could speak Norse, after he had been talking 
in that language to her for ten minutes. I insisted, 
with no knowledge of the language myself, but merely 
drawing my inference from the nature of things, that a 
creature of such fine behaviour could not have put it 
as question, but must have observed, 'And you too 
speak Norse ! ' We asked her name. She was called 
Theresa. Theresa certainly, but I could not catch the 
surname with entire clearness. She wished to bring 
her father to see us. We would gladly have seen both 
the father and the mother who in such a spot had 
contrived to rear so singular a product. She gathered 
up her two boys, sprang into her skiff, seized the oars, 
and shot away over the water. We saw her land and 
vanish into the shrubbery. In a few minutes she 
appeared again, but only with a little sister this time. 
She came to tell us that her father could not leave his 
house at so late an hour. He was sorry he could not 
use the opportunity of making our acquintance. He 

desired to know who we were. D wrote his name 

and gave it her. She went down the gangway again, 
and joined her sister, who had hid herself in her shawl 
in timid modesty. 



NORWAY ONCE MORE, 393 

They glided off into the gloaming, and we saw them 
no more. Very pretty, I thought, this Norse girl, so 
innocent, so self-possessed, who seemed in that lonely 
spot, surrounded only by peasants, to have educated her- 
self into a character so graceful. If our modern schools, 
with competition and examinations, and the rights 
of woman, and progress of civilisation, and the rest of 
it, turn out women as good and as intelligent as this 
young lassie, they will do better than I, for one, expect 
of them. Peace be with her, and a happy, useful life 
at the side of some fit companion ! In the wide garden 
of the world, with its hotbed luxuriance and feverish 
exotics, there will be one nook at any rate where nature 
combined with genuine art will bloom into real beauty. 

So ends my brief journal — ends with Theresa, for I 
can add nothing which will not be poor and trivial after 
so fair a figure — and, indeed, there is nothing more to 
say. The next morning we hastened on to Bergen. 
The afternoon which followed we were out a^ain on the 
North Sea, which we found this time in angry humour. 
But the engines made their revolutions accurately. The 
Jog gave the speed which was expected, and we made 
the passage to Harwich again in the exact period 
which had been predetermined. We were late, indeed, 
by twelve minutes, after allowing for the difference of 
longitude, and these minutes lost required to be ac- 
counted for. But we recollected that we had stopped 
precisely that number of minutes on the Dogger Bank to 
take soundings, and the mystery was perfectly explained. 
It reminded me of a learned Professor of Oxford, who 






394 NORWAY ONCE MORE. 

was engaged on sacred chronology. He told us one 
night in Common Room that he had the dates of every 
event complete from the Creation till the present day. 
He had been so minutely successful that his calculations 
were right to twelve hours. These hours had puzzled 
him till he recollected that when the sun was arrested 
by Joshua it had stood still for a whole day, exactly the 
period which he wanted, and the apparent error had 
only verified his accuracy. 



ItlCHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, LONDON & BUNGAY, 



Messrs. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.'S 

CLASSIFIED CATALOGUE 



WORKS 



N GENERAL LITERATURE. 



History, Politics, Polity, Political Memoirs, &c. 



Abbott. — A History of Greece. By 
Evelyn Abbott, M.A., LL.D. 
Part I. — From the Earliest Times to the 
Ionian Revolt. Crown 8vo., ios. 6d. 
Part II. — 500-445 B.C. Cr. 8vo., ios. 6d. 

Acland and Eansome.-A Hand- 
book in Outline of the Political 
History of England to 1896. Chro- 
nologically Arranged. By A. H. Dyke 
Acland, M.P., and Cyril Ransome, 
M.A. Crown 8vo., 6s. 

ANNUAL REGISTER (THE). A Re- 
view of Public Events at Home and 
Abroad, for the year 1896. 8vo., 18s. 
Volumes of the Annual Register for 

the years 1863-1895 can still be had. 

1 8 s. each. 

Arnold. — Introductory Lectures 
on Modern History. By Thomas 
Arnold, D.D., formerly Head Master 
of Rugby School. 8vo., 7s. 6d. 

Baden-Powel 1.— The Indian 
Village Community. Examined 
with Reference to the Physical, Ethno- 
graphic, and Historical Conditions of 
the Provinces ; chiefly on the Basis of the 
Revenue-Settlement Records and District 
Manuals. By B. H. Baden-Powell, 
M.A., CLE. With Map. 8vo., 16s. 

Bagwell.— -Ireland under the 
Tudors. By Richard Bagwell, 
LL.D. (3 vols). Vols. I. and II. From 
the first Invasion of the Northmen to the 
year 1578. 8vo., 32s. Vol. III. 1578- 
1603. 8vo., 18s. 

Ball.— Historical Review of the 
Legislative Systems Operative in 
Ireland, from the Invasion of Henry 
the Second to the Union (1 172-1800). 
By the Rt. Hon. J. T. Ball. 8vo., 6s. 

Besant.— The History of London. 
By Sir Walter Besant. With 74 
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., is, gd. Or 
bound as a School Prize Book, 2s. 6d. 



Brassey (Lord). — Papers and Ad- 
dresses. 
Naval and Maritime, 1872-1893. 

2 vols. Crown 8vo. , ios. 
Mercantile Marine and Naviga- 
tion, from 1871-1894. Cr. 8vo., 5J. 
Imperial Federation and Coloni- 
sation from 1880-1894. Crown 
8vo. , 5-y. 
Political and Miscellaneous, 1861- 
1894. Crown 8vo. , 55. 
Bright.— A History of England. By 
the Rev. J. Franck Bright, D.D. 
Period I. Medieval Monarchy: 

A.d. 449-1485. Crown 8vo. , 4s. 6d. 
Period II. Personal Monarchy: 

1485-1688. Crown 8vo. , 5J. 
Period III. Constitutional Mon- 
archy: 1689-1837. Cr. 8vo., js. 6d. 
Period IV. The Growth of Demo- 
cracy: 1837-1880. Crown 8vo., 6s. 
Buckle.— History of Civilisation in 
England and France, Spain and 
Scotland. By Henry Thomas 
Buckle. 3 vols. Crown 8vo., 24s 1 . 
Burke. — A History of Spain, from the 
Earliest Times to the Death of Ferdi- 
nand the Catholic. By Ulick Ralph 
Burke, M.A. 2 vols. 8vo., 32^. 
Chesney. — Indian Polity : a View of 
the System of Administration in India. 
By General Sir George Chesney, 
K.C.B. With Map showing all the 
Administrative Divisions of British 
India. 8vo. 2\s. 
Gorbett.— Drake and the Tudor 
Navy, with a History of the Rise of 
England as a Maritime Power. By 
Julian S. Corbett. With Portrait, 
Illustrations and Maps. 2 vols. 8vo., 
36 j. 
Creighton.— A History of the Pa- 
pacy from the Great Schism to 
the Sack of Rome (1378-1527). By 
M. Creighton, D.D., Lord Bishop of 
London. 6 vols. Cr. 8vo. , 6s. each. 

Cuningliam — A Scheme for Im- 
perial Federation : a Senate for the 
Empire. By Granville C. Cuningham 
of Montreal, Canada. Cr. 8vo., 3s. 6d. 



2 LONGMANS &» CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 



History, Politics, Polity 

Curzon.— Persia and the Persian 
Question. By the Right Hon. George 
N. Curzon, M.P. With 9 Maps, 96 
Illustrations, Appendices, and an Index. 
2 vols. 8vo. , 42J. 

De Toequeville. — Democracy in 
America. By Alexis de Tocque- 
ville. 2 vols. Crown 8vo., 165. 

Dickinson.— The Development of 
Parliament during the Nine- 
teenth Century. By G. Lowes 
Dickinson, M.A. 8vo. 7s. 6d. 

Eggleston. — The Beginners of a 
Nation : A History of the Source and 
Rise of the Earliest English Settlements 
in America, with Special Reference to the 
Life and Character of the People. By 
Edward Eggleston. With 8 Maps. 
Crown 8vo. , js. 6d. 

Froude (James A.). 
The History of England, from the 

Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the 

Spanish Armada. 12 vols. Crown 

8vo., 3s. 6d. each. 
The Divorce of Catherine of Ara- 

GON. Crown 8vo. , 35. 6d. 
The Spanish Story of the Armada, 

and other Essays. Cr. 8vo. , 3^. 6d. 
The English in Ireland in the 

Eighteenth Century. 3 vols. 

Crown 8vo. , 105. 6d. 
English Seamen in the Sixteenth 

Century. Crown 8vo., 6s. 
The Council of Trent. Cr.8vo.,3.r.6<f. 
Short Studies on Great Subjects. 

4 vols. Cr. 8vo., 3.y. 6d. each. 
Caesar : a Sketch. Cr. 8vo. , 3s. 6d. 

Gardiner (Samuel Rawson, D.C.L., 

LL.D.).. 

History of England, from the Ac- 
cession of James I. to the Outbreak of 
the Civil War, 1603-1642. 10 vols. 
Crown 8vo., 6s. each. 

A History of the Great Civil War, 
1642- 1649. 4 vols. Cr. 8vo., 6s. each. 

A History of the Commonwealth 
and the Protectorate, 1649- 1660. 
Vol. I., 1649- 165 1. With 14 Maps. 
8vo.,2is. Vol. II., 1651-1654. With 

7 Maps. 8vo. , 21s. 
What Gunpowder Plot Was. With 

8 Illustrations and Plates. Crown 
8vo., 5-y. 



Political Memoirs, &c. — continued. 
Gardiner (Samuel Rawson, D.C.L., 

LL. D. ) — continued. 

Cromwell's Place in History. 
Founded on Six Lectures delivered in 
the University of Oxford. Crown 
8vo., 3s. 6d. 

The Student's History of England. 
With 378 Illustrations. Cr. 8vo. , 12J. 

Also in Three Volumes, price 45. each. 

Vol. I. B.C. 55-A.D. 1509. 173 Illus- 
trations. 

Vol. II. 1509-1689. 96 Illustrations. 

Vol. III. 1689-1885. 109 Illustrations. 

Greville. — A Journal of the Reigns 
of King George IV., King William 
IV., and Queen Victoria. By 
Charles C. F. Greville, formerly 
Clerk of the Council. 8 vols. Crown 
8vo., 3s. 6d. each. 

HARVARD HISTORICAL STUDIES; 

The Suppression of the African 
Slave Trade to the United 
States of America, 1638-1870. By 
W. E. B. Du Bois, Ph.D. 8vo.,7J.6^. 

The Contest over the Ratifica- 
tion of the Federal Constitu- 
tion in Massachusetts. By S. B. 
Harding, A.M. 8vo., 6s. 

A Critical Study of Nullification 
in South Carolina. By D. F. 
Houston, A.M. 8vo., 6s. 

Nominations for Elective Office 
in the United States. By Fred- 
erick W. Dallinger, A.M. 8vo., 
js. 6d. 

A Bibliography of British Muni- 
cipal History, including Gilds and 
Parliamentary Representation. By 
Charles Gross, Ph.D. 8vo, 12s. 

The Liberty and Free Soil Par- 
ties in the North-West. By 
Theodore Clarke Smith, Ph.D. 
8vo. , js. 6d. 
Historic Towns.— Edited by E. A. 

Freeman, D.C.L., and Rev. William 

Hunt, M.A. With Maps and Plans. 

Crown 8vo., 3^. 6d. each. 

Bristol. By Rev. W. [ London. By Rev. W. 
Hunt. 

Carlisle. By Mandell 
Creighton, D.D. 

Cinque Ports. By 
Montagu Burrows. 



Colchester. By Rev. 
E. L. Cutts. 

Exeter. By E. A. 
Freeman. 



J. Loftie. 

Oxford. By Rev. C. 
W. Boase. 

Winchester. By G. 
W. Kitchin, D.D. 

York. By Rev. James 
Raine. 

New York. By Theo- 
dore Roosevelt. 

Boston (U.S.). Bv 
T^enry Cabot Lodge. 



LONGMAN'S 6* CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 



History, Politics, Polity, Political Memoirs, &c— continued. 

Joyce (P. W., LL.D.). j Lowell.— Governments and Parties 

A Short History of Ireland, from 
the Earliest Times to 1608. Crown 
8vo. , ioj-. 6d. 



in Continental Europe. By A. 
Lawrence Lowell. 2 vols. 8vo. , 

2IJ. 



A Child's History of Ireland, from 
the Earliest Times to the Death of 
O'Connell. With Map and 160 Illus- 
trations. Crown 8vo., y. 6d. 



Kaye and Malleson.— History of 
the Indian Mutiny, 1857-1858. By 
Sir John W. Kaye and Colonel G. B. 
Malleson. With Analytical Index 
and Maps and Plans. 6 vols. Crown 
8vo., 2 s - €>d. each. 



.Lang (Andrew). 

Pickle the Spy, or, The Incognito of 
Prince Charles. With 6 Portraits. 
8vo., i8j. 

St. Andrews. With 8 Plates and 24 
Illustrations in the Text by T. Hodge. 
8vo., 155. net. 



Laurie.— Historical Survey of Pre- 
Christian Education. By S. S. 
Laurie, A.M., LL.D. Crown 8vo., 12s. 



Lecky (William Edward Hart- 
pole). 

History of England in the Eigh- 
teenth Century. 
Library Edition, 8 vols. 8vo., £j 4J. 
Cabinet Edition. England. 7 vols. 
Cr. 8vo., 6s. each. Ireland. 5 
vols. Crown 8vo., 6s. each. 

History of European Morals from 
Augustus to Charlemagne. 2 
vols. Crown 8vo. , 16s. 

History of the Rise and Influence 
,of the Spirit of Rationalism in 
Europe. 2 vols. Crown -8vo., 16s. 



Democracy and Liberty. 
8vo., 36 j. 



2 vols. 



The Empire : its Value and its Growth. 
An Inaugural Address delivered at the 
Imperial Institute, November 20,1893. 
Crown 8vo., is. 6d. 



Macaulay (Lord). 
The Life and Works of Lord Mac- 
aulay. ''Edinburgh' Edition. 10 vols. 
8vo. , 6s. each. 

Vols. I. -IV. History of England 
Vols. V.-VII. Essays; Biographies; 
Indian Penal Code ; Contribu- 
tions to Knight's 'Quarterly 
Magazine '. 
Vol. VIII. Speeches ; Lays of 
Ancient Rome ; Miscellaneous 
Poems. 
Vols. IX. and X. The Life and 
Letters of Lord Macaulay. 
By the Right Hon. SirG. O. Treve- 
LYAN, Bart. 
This Edition is a cheaper reprint of the 
Library Edition of LORD MACAULAY'* 
Life and Works. 

Complete Works. 

Cabinet Edition. 16 vols. Post 8vo... 
£a 16J. 

• Edinburgh ' Edition. 8 vols. 8vo. , 

65. each. 
Library Edition. 8 vols. 8vo., ^5 $s. 

History of England from the Ac- 
cession of James the Second. 
Popular Edition. 2 vols. Cr. 8vo. , 5^. 
Student's Edit. 2 vols. Cr. 8vo. , 12s. 
People's Edition. 4 vols. Cr. 8vo. , 16s. 
Cabinet Edition. 8vols. Post 8 vo., 48.?. 
' Edinburgh ' Edition. 4 vols. 8vo. , 

6s. each. 
Library Edition. 5 vols. 8vo., ^4. 

Critical and Historical Essays, 
with Lays of Ancient Rome, in 1 
volume. 

Popular Edition. Crown 8vo., 2s. 6d. 
Authorised Edition. Crown 8vo., 
2S. 6d. , or 35. 6d. , gilt edges. 

* Silver Library ' Edition. Crown 

8vo., 2>s. 6d. 

Critical and Historical Essays. 
Student's Edition. 1 vol. Cr. 8vo. , 6s. 
People's Edition. 2 vols. Cr. 8vo. ,8s. 
' Trevelyan' Edit. 2 vols. Cr.8vo.,Q.y. 
Cabinet Edition. 4vols. Post8vo.,24f. 
' Edinburgh ' Edition. 4 vols. 8vo. , 

6s. each. 
Library Edition. 3 vols. 8vo., 36J. 



LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 



History, Politics, Polity, Political Memoirs, &c— continued. 

Montague.— The Elements of Eng- 
lish Constitutional History. By 
F. C. Montague, M.A. Cr. 8vo., 3s. 6d. 



Macaulay {Lord).— continued. 

Essays which may be had separately, 
price 6d. each sewed, is. each cloth. 



Addison and Wal- 
pole. 

Croker's Boswell's 
Johnson. 

Hallam's Constitu- 
tional History. 

Warren Hastings. 

The Earl of Chat- 
ham (Two Essays). 

Frederick the Great. 



Ranke and Glad- 
stone. 

Milton and Machia- 
velli. 

Lord Byron. 

Lord Clive. 

Lord Byron, and The 
Comic Dramatists 
of the Restoration. 



Miscellaneous Writings. 



People's Edition. 

4s. 6d. 
Library Edition. 
Popular Edition. 
Cabinet Edition. 



1 vol. Cr. 8vo. 



2 vols. 8vo. , 21.?. 
Cr. 8vo., 2.s. 6d. 
Including Indian 
Penal Code, Lays of Ancient Rome, 
and Miscellaneous Poems. 4 vols. 
Post 8vo. , 24s. 

Selections from the Writings of 
Lord Macaulay. Edited, with 
Occasional Notes, by the Right Hon. 
Sir G. O. Trevelyan, Bart. Cr. 8vo. , 6s. 

MacColl. — The Sultan and the 
Powers. By the Rev. Malcolm Mac- 
Coll, M.A., Canon of T Jpon. 8vo., 
xos. 6d. 

Mackinnon. — Tt- Union of Eng- 
land and Sec: 1 .AND : a Study of 
International Hi -1 ory. By James Mac- 
Kinnon, Ph.D . Examiner in History to 
the University of Edinburgh. 8vo., 16s. 

May. — Thk Constitutional History 
of England since the Accession of 
George III. 1760-1870. By Sir Thomas 
Erskine May, K.C.B. (Lord Farn- 
borough). 3 vols. Crown 8vo., 18s. 

Merivale (The late Dean). 

History of the Romans under the 
Empire. 8 vols. Cr. 8vo., 3s. 6d. 
each. 

The Fall of the Roman Republic: 
a Short History of the Last Century 
of the Commonwealth. i2mo., 7s. 6d. 

General History of Rome, from the 
Foundation of the City to the Fall of 
Augustulus, B.C. 753-A.D. 476. With 
5 Maps. Crown 8vo. , js. 6d. 



Kiciiman. — Appenzell : Pure Demo- 
cracy and Pastoral Life in Inner- 
A Swiss Study. By Irving 



Rhoden. 

B. RlCHMAN, Consul-General 
United States to Switzerland. 
Maps. Crown 8vo., 55. 



of the 
With 



Seebohm (Frederic). 

The English Village Community 
Examined in its Relations to the 
Manorial and Tribal Systems, &c. 
With 13 Maps and Plates. 8vo., 16s. 

The Tribal System in Wales : being 
Part of an Inquiry into the Structure 
and Methods of Tribal Society. With 
3 Maps. 8vo. , 12s. 

Sharpe.— London and the Kingdom : 
a History derived mainly from the 
Archives at Guildhall in the custody of 
the Corporation of the City of London. 
By Reginald R. Sharpe, D.C.L., Re- 
cords Clerk in the Office of the Town 
Clerk of the City of London. 3 vols. 
8vo. 10s. 6d. each. 

Smith.— Carthage and the Cartha- 
ginians. By R. Bosworth Smith, 
M.A., With Maps, Plans, &c. Cr. 
8vo. , 35. 6d. 

Stephens.— A History ofthe French 
Revolution. By H.Morse Stephens, 
3 vols. 8vo. Vols. I. and II. , iSs. each. 

Stubbs.— History of the University 
of Dublin, from its Foundation to the 
End of the Eighteenth Century. By J. 
W. Stubbs. 8vo., 12s. 6d. 

Sutherlan d— The History of 
Australia and New Zealand, from 
1606-1890. By Alexander Suther- 
land, M.A., and George Suther- 
land, M.A. Crown 8vo., 2s. 6d. 

Taylor. — A Student's Manual of 
the History of India. By Colonel 
Meadows Taylor, C.S.L, &c. Cr. 

8vo. , js. 6d. 

Todd.— Parliamentary Government 

INTHEBRITISHCOLONIES. ByALPHEUS 

Todd, LL.D. 8vo., 30^. net. 



LONGMANS &> CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 



History, Politics, Polity, Political Memoirs, ho,— continued. 

Wood-Martin.— Pagan Ireland: an 
Archaeological Sketch. A Handbook of 
Irish Pre-Christian Antiquities. By W. 
G. Wood-Martin, M.R.I. A. With 512 
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 15s. 



Wakeman and Hassall.— Essays 

Introductory to the Study of 
English Constitutional History. 
By Resident Members of the University 
of Oxford. Edited by Henry Offley 
Wakeman, M.A., and Arthur Has- 
sall, M.A. Crown 8vo., 6s. 
Walpole.— History of England 
from the Conclusion of the 
Great War in 1815 to 1858. By 
Spencer Walpole. 6 vols. Crown 
8vo.. 6s. each. 



Wylie.— History of England under 
Henry IV. By James Hamilton 
Wylie, M.A., one of H.M. Inspectors 
of Schools. 4 vols. Crown 8vo. Vol. 
I., 1309-1404, 10s. 6d. Vol. II. 
Vol. III. 15s. Vol. IV. 2U. 



15s. 



Biography, Personal Memoirs, &o. 



Armstrong.— The Life and Letters 
of Edmund J. Armstrong. Edited 
by G. F. Savage Armstrong. Fcp. 
8vo., ys. 6d. 

Bacon. — The Letters and Life of 
Francis Bacon, including all his 
Occasional Works. Edited by James 
Spedding. 7 vols. 8vo. , £4. 4J. 

Bagehot. — Biographical Studies. 
By Walter Bagehot. Cr. 8vo. , 35. 6d. 

Blackwell. — Pioneer Work in Open- 
ing the Medical Profession to 
Women : Autobiographical Sketches. 
By Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell. Cr. 
8vo., 6s. 

Boyd (A. K. H.). ('A.K.H.B.'). 

Twenty-five Years of St. Andrews. 

1865- 1 890. 2 vols. 8vo. Vol. I., 12s. 

Vol. II., 15s. 
St. Andrews and Elsewhere : 

Glimpses of Some Gone and of Things 

Left. 8vo., 1 5 s. 
The Last Years of St. Andrews : 

September, 1890, to September, 1893. 

8vo., 155-. 

Buss. — Frances Mary Buss and her 
Work for Education. By Annie 
E. Ridley. With 5 Portraits and 4 
Illustrations. Crown 8vo. , ys. 6d. 

Carlyle.— Thomas Carlyle : a History 
ofhisLife. By James Anthony Froude, 
1795-1833. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. , ys. 
1834-1881. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. , ys. 

Digby.— The Life of Sir Kenelm 
DlGBY, by one of his Descendants, 
the Author of 'The Life of a Con- 
spirator,' ' A Life of Archbishop Laud,' 
etc. With 7 Illustrations. 8vo. , 16s. 



Duncan. — Admiral Duncan. By the 
Earl of Camperdown. With 3 Por 
traits. 8vo. , x6s. 

Erasmus. — Life and Letters of 
Erasmus. By James Anthony 
Froude. Crown 8vo., 6s. 

FALKLANDS. By the Author of ' The 
Life of Sir Kenelm Digby,' 'The Life 
of a Prig,' etc. With Portraits and 
other Illustrations. 8vo., ios. 6d. 

Fox.— The Early History of Charles 
James Fox. By the Right Hon. Sir G. 
O. Trevelyan, Bart. 

Library Edition. 8vo. , i8j. 
Cabinet Edition. Crown 8vo. , 6s. 

Halifax.— The Life and Letters of 
Sir George Savile, Baronet, First 
Marquis of Halifax. With a New 
Edition of his Works, now for the first 
time collected and revised. By H. C. 
Foxcroft. 2 vols. 8vo. , 32s. 

Hamilton. — Life of Sir William 
Hamilton. By R. P. Graves. 8vo. 
3 vols. 155-. each. Addendum. 8vo.,6d. 

Havelock. — Memoirs of Sir Henry 
Havelock, K. C. B. By John Clark 
Marshman. Crown 8vo., 35-. 6d. 

Haweis.— My Musical Life. By the 
Rev. H. R. Haweis. With Portrait of 
Richard Wagner and 3 Illustrations. 
Crown 8vo. , ys. 6d. 

Holroyd.— The Girlhood of Maria 
Josep'ha Holroyd (Lady Stanley of 
Alderly). Recorded in Letters of a 
Hundred v ea rs Ago, from 1776- 1796. 
Edited by J. H. Adeane. With 6 
Portraits. 8vo., 18^. 



LONGMANS &» CO. 'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 



Biography, Personal Memoirs, &c. — conti?iued. 



Jackson.— The Life of Stonewall 
Jackson. By Lieut. -Col. G. F. Hen- 
derson, York and Lancaster Regiment. 
With Portrait, Maps and Plans. 2 
vols. 8vo. , 425. 
Lejeune.— Memoirs of Baron Le- 
jeune, Aide-de-Camp to Marshals 
Berthier, Davout, and Oudinot. Trans- 
lated. 2 vols. 8vo., 245-. 
Luther. — Life of Luther. By 
Julius Kostlin. With Illustrations 
from Authentic Sources. Translated 
from the German. Crown 8vo., 3s. 6d. 
Macaulay. — The Life and Letters 
of Lord Macaulay. By the Right 
Hon. SirG. O. Trevelyan, Bart., M.P. 
Popular Edit. 1 vol. Cr. 8vo. , is. 6d. 
Student's Edition. 1 vol. Cr. 8vo. , 6.?. 
Cabinet Edition. 2vols. Post8vo.,i2j-. 
Library Edition. 2 vols. 8vo. , 36s. 
' Edinburgh Edition. ' 2 vols. 8vo. , 
6s. each. 
Marbot. — The Memoirs of the Baron 
de Marbot. Translated from the 
French. 2 vols. Crown 8vo., js. 
Max Miiller.— Auld Lang Syne. By 
the Right Hon. Professor F. Max Mul- 
LER. With Portrait. 8vo., 10 J. 6d. 

Wansen. — Fridtjof Nansen, 1861- 
1893. By W. C. Brogger and Nordahl 
Rolfsen. Translated by William 
Archer. With 8 Plates, 48 Illustrations 
in the Text, and 3 Maps. 8vo., 12s. 6d. 

Place.— The Life of Francis Place. 
By Graham Wallas. 8vo. , 12s. 

Rawlinson.— A Memoir of Major- 
General Sir Henry Creswicke 
Rawlinson, Bart., K.C.B. By Geo. 
Rawlinson, M.A., F.R.G.S., Canon 
of Canterbury. With an Introduction 
by Field-Marshal Lord Roberts of 
Kandahar, V.C. With Map, 3 Por- 
traits and an Illustration. 8vo. . 16s. 



Reeve.— The Life and Letters of 
Henry Reeve, C.B., late Editor of the 
' Edinburgh Review,' and Registrar of 
the Privy Council. By J. K. Laugh- 
ton, M.A. 

Romanes.— The Life and Letters 
of George John Romanes, M.A., 
LL.D., F.R.S. Written and Edited 
by his Wife. With Portrait and 2 
Illustrations. Cr. 8vo. , 6s. 

Seebohm.— The Oxford Reformers 
— John Colet, Erasmus and Thomas 
More : a History of their Fellow-Work. 
By Frederic Seebohm. 8vo., 14J. 

Shakespeare.— Outlines of the 
Life of Shakespeare. By J. O. 
Halliwell-Phillipps. With Illus- 
trations and Facsimiles. 2 vols. 
Royal 8vo., £i is. 

Shakespeare's True Life. By Jas. 
Walter. With 500 Illustrations by 
Gerald E. Moira. Imp. 8vo., 21 s. 

Verney.— Memoirs of the Verney 

Family. 

Vols. I. and II. During the Civil 
War. By Frances Parthenope 
Verney. With 38 Portraits, Wood- 
cuts and Facsimile. Royal 8vo., 425. 

Vol. III. During the Common- 
wealth. 1650- 1660. By Margaret 
M. Verney. With 10 Portraits, &c. 
Royal 8vo. , 21s. 

Wakley.— The Life and Times of 
Thomas Wakley, Founder and First 
Editor of the ' Lancet, ' Member of 
Parliament for Finsbury, and Coroner 
for West Middlesex. By S. Squire 
Sprigge, M.B. Cantab. With 2 Por- 
traits. 8vo., i8j. 

Wellington.— Life of the Duke of 
Wellington. By the Rev. G. R. 
Gleig, M.A. Crown 8vo., y. 6d, 



Travel and Adventure, the Colonies, &c. 

Bent.— The Ruined Cities of Mash- 
onaland : being a Record of Excava- 
tion and Exploration in 1891. By J. 
Theodore Bent. With 117 Illustra- 
tions. Crown 8vo. , 3s. 6d. 



Arnold.— Seas and Lands. By Sir 
Edwin Arnold. With 71 Illustrations. 
Cr. 8vo., 35. 6d. 
Baker (Sir S. W.). 
Eight Years in Ceylon. With 6 j 

Illustrations. Crown 8vo. , 3s. 6d. 
The Rifle and the Hound in Cey- j 
lon. With 6 Illustrations. Cr. 8vo. , 
3s. 6d. I 



LONGMANS A» CO,'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 



TraYel and Adventure, the Colonies, &c. — continued. 



BieknelL— Travel and Adventure 
in Northern Queensland. By 
Arthur C. Bic knell. With 24 
Plates and 22 Illustrations in the text. 
8vo., 15-r. 

Brassey. — Voyages and Travels of 
Lord Brassey, K.C.B., D.C.L., 1862- 
1894. Arranged and Edited by Captain 
S. Eardley-Wilmot. 2 vols. Cr. 
8vo. , xos. 

Brassey (The late Lady). 
A Voyage in the ' Sunbeam ' ; Our 

Home on the Ocean for Eleven 

Months. 

Cabi?iet Edition. With Map and 66 
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., js. 6d. 

Silver Library Edition. With 66 
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 3s. 6d. 

Popular Edition. With 60 Illustra- 
tions. 4to., 6d. sewed, is. cloth, 

School Edition. With 37 Illustrations, 
Fcp., 2J.cloth, or 3s. white parchment. 

Sunshine and Storm in the East. 
Cabinet Edition. With 2 Maps and 
114 Illustrations. Crown 8vo., js.6d. 
Popular Edition. With 103 Illustra- 
tions. 4to. , 6d. sewed, is. cloth. 

In the Trades, the Tropics, and i 
the ' Roaring Forties '. 
Cabinet Edition. With Map and 220 j 

Illustrations. Crown 8vo. , js. 6d, 1 
Popular Edition. With 183 Illustra- . 

tions. 4to. , 6d. sewed, is. cloth. 

Three Voyages in the ' Sunbeam '. j 
Popular Edition. With 346 Illustra- 
tions. 4to., 2.s. 6d. 

Browning.— A Girl's Wanderings 
in Hungary. By H. Ellen Brown- 
ing. With Map and 20 Illustrations. 
Crown 8vo. , 3s. 6d. 

Churchill.— The Story of the Ma- j 
lakand Field Force. By Lieut. I 
Winston L. Spencer Churchill. ' 
With Maps and Plans. Cr. 8vo. , js. 6d. j 

Froude (James A.). 
Oceana : or England and her Colonies. 

With 9 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. , 

2S. boards, 2s. 6d. cloth. 
The English in the West Indies : j 

or the Bow of Ulysses. With 9 Illus- j 

trations. Cr. 8vo. , 2s. bds. , 2s. 6d. cl. 



Howitt.— Visits to Remarkable 
Places, Old Halls, Battle-Fields 
Scenes illustrative of Striking Passages 
in English History and Poetry. By 
William Howitt. With 80 Illustra- 
tions. Crown 8vo. , 3s. 6d. 
Jones. — Rock Climbing in the 
English Lake District. By Owen 
Glynne Jones, B.Sc. (Lond.), Member 
of the Alpine Club. With 30 Full-page 
Illustrations and 9 Lithograph Plate 
Diagrams of the Chief Routes. 8vo., 
1 5 j. net. 
Knight (E. F.). 
The Cruise of the 'Alerte': the 
Narrative of a Search for Treasure on 
the Desert Island of Trinidad. With 
2 Maps and 23 Illustrations. Crown 
8vo. , 3s. 6d. 
Where Three Empires Meet: a Nar- 
rative of Recent Travel in Kashmir, 
Western Tibet, Baltistan, Ladak, 
Gilgit, and the adjoining Countries. 
With a Map and 54 Illustrations. 
Cr. 8vo. , 3s. 6d. 
The ' Falcon ' on the Baltic : a 
Voyage from London to Copenhagen 
in a Three-Tonner. With 10 Full- 
page Illustrations. Cr. 8vo., y. 6d. 
Lees and Cliitterbuek.— B. C. 1887: 
A Ramble in British Columbia. By 
J. A. Lees and W. J. Clutterbuck. 
With Map and 75 Illustrations. Cr. 8vo., 
3s. 6d. 
Max M tiller .—Letters from Con- 
stantinople. By Mrs. Max Muller. 
With 12 Views of Constantinople and 
the neighbourhood. Crown 8vo., 6s. 
I^ansen (Fridtjof). 
The First Crossing of Greenland. 
With numerous Illustrations and a 
Map. Crown 8vo. , 3s. 6d. 
Eskimo Life. With 31 Illustrations. 
8vo., 16s. 
Oliver.— Crags and Craters : Ram- 
bles in the Island of Reunion. By 
William Dudley Oliver, M.A. 
With 27 Illustrations and a Map. Cr. 
8vo. , 6s. 
Quiilinan. — Journal of a Few 
Months' Residence in Portugal, 
and Glimpses of the South of Spain. 
By Mrs. Quillinan (Dora Words- 
worth). New Edition. Edited, with 
Memoir, by Edmund Lee, Author of 
'Dorothy Wordsworth.' etc. Crown 
8vo., 6s. 



8 LONGMANS 6* CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 



Travel and Adventure, the Colonies, &e. — continued. 



mith. — Climbing in the British 
Isles. By W. P. Haskett Smith. 
With Illustrations by Ellis Carr, and 
Numerous Plans. 

Part I. England. i6mo., 3s. td. 



Part II. Wales 
i6mo., 3 j. 6d. 



and Ireland. 



Stephen. — The Playground of 
Europe. By Leslie Stephen. New 
Edition, with Additions and 4 Illustra- 
tions. Crown 8vo., 6s. net. 



THREE IN NORWAY. By Two oi 
Them. With a Map and 59 Illustra- 
tions. Cr. 8vo. , zs. boards, 2s. 6d. cloth. 

Tyndall. — The Glaciers of the Alps: 
being a Narrative of Excursions and 
Ascents. An Account of the Origin and 
Phenomena of Glaciers, and an Exposi- 
tion of the Physical Principles to which 
they are related. By John Tyndall, 
F. R.S. With numerous Illustrations. 
Crown 8vo. , 6s. 6d. net. 

j Vivian.— Servi a. : the Poor Man's 
Paradise. By HERBERT VIVIAN, M.A. 

1 8vo. , 15^. 



Sport and Pastime. 
THE BADMINTON LIBRARY. 

Edited by HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT, K.G., and 
A. E. T. WATSON. 



Complete in 28 Volumes. Crown 8vo. , Price 10s. 6d. each Volume, Cloth. 



The Volumes are also issued half-bound in Leather, with gilt 
be had from all Booksellers. 



The price can 



ARCHERY. By C. J. Longman and BIG GAME SHOOTING— continued. 
Col. H. Walrond. With Contribu- j 
tions by Miss Legh, Viscount Dillon, j 
&c. With 2 Maps, 23 Plates, and 172 j 
Illustrations in the Text. Crown 8vo. , 1 
ioj. 6d. 



ATHLETICS AND FOOTBALL. By 
Montague Shearman. With 6 
Plates and 52 Illustrations in the Text. 
Crown 8vo. , 10s. 6d. 



BIG GAME SHOOTING. 
Phillipps-Wolley. 



By Clive 



Vol. I. Africa and America. With 
Contributions by Sir Samuel W. 
Baker, W. C. Oswell, F. C. 
Selous, &c. With 20 Plates and 
57 Illustrations in the Text. Crown 
8vo., 10s. 6d. 



Vol. II. Europe, Asia, and the 
Arctic Regions. With Contributions 
by Lieut. -Colonel R. Heber Percy, 
Major Algernon C. Heber Percy, 
&c. With 17 Plates and 56 Illus- 
trations in the Text. Crown 8vo., 
10s. 6d. 



BILLIARDS. By Major W. Broadfoot, 
R.E. With Contributions by A. H. 
Boyd, Sydenham Dixon, W. J. 
Ford, &c. With 11 Plates, 19 Illus- 
trations in the Text, and numerous 
Diagrams. Crown 8vo. , icy. 6d. 



BOATING. By W. B. Woodgate. 
With 10 Plates, 39 Illustrations in the 
Text, and 4 Maps of Rowing Courses. 
Crown 8vo. , ioj. 6d. 



LONGMANS &> CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 



Sport and Pastime— continued. 
THE BADMINTON LIBRARY— continued. 



COURSING AND FALCONRY. By 
Harding Cox and the Hon. Gerald 
Lascelles. With 20 Plates and 
56 Illustrations in the Text. Crown 
8vo. , ioj. 6d. 

CRICKET. By A. G. Steel, and the 
Hon. R. H. Lyttelton. With Con- 
tributions by Andrew Lang, W. G. 
Grace, F. Gale, &c. With 12 Plates 
and 52 Illustrations in the Text. Crown 
8vo. , ioj. 6d. 

CYCLING. By the Earl of Albe- 
marle, and G. Lacy Hillier. With 
19 Plates and 44 Illustrations in the 
Text. Crown 8vo., 105. 6d. 

DANCING. By Mrs. Lilly Grove, 
F.R.G.S. With Contributions by Miss 
Middleton, The Honourable Mrs. 
Armytage, &c. With Musical Ex- 
amples, and 38 Full-page Plates and 
93 Illustrations in the Text. Crown 
8vo., ioj. 6d. 

DRIVING. By His Grace the Duke of 
Beaufort, K.G. With Contributions 
by other Authorities. With 12 Plates 
and 54 Illustrations in the Text* 
Crown 8vo., ioj. 6d. 

FENCING, BOXING, AND WREST- 
LING. By Walter H. Pollock, 
F. C. Grove, C. Prevost, E. B. 
Mitchell, and Walter Armstrong. 
With 18 Plates and 24 Illustrations in 
the Text. Crown 8vo. , ioj. 6d. 

FISHING. By H. Cholmondeley-Pen- 

NELL. 

Vol. I. Salmon and Trout. With 
Contributions by H. R. Francis, 
Major John P. Traherne, &c. 
With 9 Plates and numerous Illustra- 
tions of Tackle, &c. Crown 8vo., 
ioj. 6d. 

Vol. II. Pike and other Coarse 
Fish. With Contributions by the 
Marquis of Exeter, William 
Senior, G. Christopher Davies, 
&c. With 7 Plates and numerous 
Illustrations of Tackle, &c. Crown 
8vo., ioj. 6d. 



GOLF. By Horace G. Hutchinson. 
With Contributions by the Rt. Hon. A. 
J. Balfour, M.P., Sir Walter 
Simpson, Bart., Andrew Lang, &c. 
With 25 Plates and 65 Illustrations in 
the Text. Cr. 8vo. . ioj. 6d. 



H UNTING. By His Grace the Duke ot 
Beaufort K.G., and Mowbray 
Morris. With Contributions by the 
Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire, 
Rev. E. W. L. Davies, G. H. Long- 
man, &c. With 5 Plates and 54 Illus- 
trations in the Text. Crown 8vo., 
ioj. 6d. 



MOUNTAINEERING. By C. T. Dent. 
With Contributions by Sir W. M^ Con- 
way, D. W. Freshfield, C. E. Ma- 
thews, &c. With 13 Plates and 95 
Illustrations in the Text. Crown 8vo., 
ioj. 6d. 



POETRY OF SPORT (THE).— Selected 
by Hedley Peek. With a Chapter on 
Classical Allusions to Sport by Andrew 
Lang, and a Special Preface to the 
Badminton Library by A. E. T. Wat- 
son. V/ith 32 Plates and 74 Illustra- 
tions in the Text. Crown 8vo. , ioj. 6d. 



RACING AND STEEPLE-CHASING. 
By the Earl of Suffolk and Berk- 
shire, W. G. Craven, the Hon. F. 
Lawley, Arthur Coventry, and 
Alfred E. T. Watson. With 
Frontispiece and 56 Illustrations in the 
Text. Crown 8vo., ioj. 6d. 



RIDING AND POLO. By Captain 
Robert Weir, the Duke of Beau- 
fort, the Earl of Suffolk and 
Berkshire, the Earl of Onslow, 
&c. With 18 Plates and 41 Illustra- 
tions in the Text. Crown 8vo. , ioj. 6d. 



SEA FISHING. By John Bickerdyke, 
Sir H. W. Gore-Booth, Alfred C. 
Harms worth, and W. Senior. With 
22 Full-page Plates and 175 Illustra- 
tions in the Text. Crown 8vo. , ioj. 6d. 



io LONGMANS 6- CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 



Sport and Pastime — continued. 
THE BADMINTON LIBRARY— continued. 



- 



SHOOTING. 

Vol. I. Field and Covert. By Lord 
WALSiNGHAMandSir Ralph Payne- 
Gall wey, Bart. With Contribu- 
tions by the Hon. Gerald Las- 
celles and A. J. Stuart- Wortley. 
With ii Plates and 94 Illustrations 
in the Text. Crown 8vo. , ioj. 6d. 

Vol. II. Moor and Marsh. By Lord 
Walsingham and Sir Ralph Payne- 
Gall wey, Bart. With Contributions 
by Lord Lovat and Lord Charles 
Lennox Kerr. With 8 Plates and 
57 Illustrations in the Text. Crown 
8vo. , 10s. 6d. 

SKATING, CURLING, TOBOGGAN- 
ING. By J. M. Heathcote, C. G. 
Tebbutt, T. Maxwell Witham, 
Rev. John Kerr, Ormond Hake, 
Henry A. Buck, &c. With 12 Plates 
and 272 Illustrations in the Text. Cr. 
8vo. , io.y. 6d. 

SWIMMING. By Archibald Sinclair 
and William Henry, Hon. Sees, of 
the Life-Saving Society. With 13 Plates 
and 106 Illustrations in the Text. Cr. 
8vo., 10s. 6d. 



TENNIS, LAWN TENNIS, RAC- 
QUETS, AND FIVES. By J. M. and 
C. G. Heathcote, E. O. Pleydell- 
Bouverie, and A. C. Ainger. With 
Contributions by the Hon. A. Lyttel- 
ton, W. C. Marshall, Miss L. Dod, 
&c. With 12 Plates and 67 Illustra- 
tions in the Text. Crown 8vo. , 10s. 6d. 

YACHTING. 

Vol. I. Cruising, Construction of 
Yachts, Yacht Racing Rules, 
Fitting-out, &c. By Sir Edward 
Sullivan, Bart., The Earl of 
Pembroke, Lord Brassey, K.C.B., 
C. E. Seth-Smith, C.B., G. L. 
Watson, R. T. Pritchett, E. F. 
Knight, &c. With 21 Plates and 
93 Illustrations in the Text, and from 
Photographs. Crown 8vo. , 10s. 6d. 

Vol. II. Yacht Clubs, Yachting in 
America and the Colonies, Yacht 
Racing, &c. By R. T. Pritchett, 
The Marquis of Dufferin and 
Ava, K.P., The Earl of Onslow, 
James McFerran, &c. With 35 
Plates and 160 Illustrations in the 
Text. Crown 8vo., 10s. 6d. 



Fur, Feather and Fin Series. 

Edited by A. E. T. Watson. 

Crown 8vo. , price 5s. each Volume. 

The Volumes are also issued half-bound in Leather, with gilt top. 
be had from all Booksellers. 



The -price can 



THE PARTRIDGE. Natural History, 
by the Rev. H. A. Macpherson ; 
Shooting, by A. J. Stuart-Wortley ; 
Cookery, by George Saintsbury. 
With 11 Illustrations and various Dia- 
grams in the Text. Crown 8vo., $s. 



THE GROUSE. Natural History, by the 
Rev. H. A. Macpherson ; Shooting, 
by A. J. Stuart-Wortley ; Cookery, 
by George Saintsbury. With 13 
Illustrations and various Diagrams 
in the Text. Crown 8vo. , 5s. 



THE PHEASANT. Natural History, by 
the Rev. H. A. Macpherson ; Shooting, 
by A. J. Stuart-Wortley; Cookery, 
by Alexander InnesShand. With 10 
Illustrations and various Diagrams 
Crown 8vo. , $s. 

THE HARE. Natural History, by the 
Rev. H. A. Macpherson; Shooting, 
by the Hon. Gerald Lascelles ; 
Coursing, by Charles Richardson; 
Hunting, by J. S. Gibbons and G. H. 
Longman ; Cookery, by Col. Kenney 
Herbert. With 9 Illustrations. Cr. 
8vo. , 5-y. 



LONGMANS &> CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 



Sport and Pastime— continued. 
Fur, Feather and Fin Series— continued. 



RED DEER. Natural History, by 
the Rev. H. A. Macpherson ; Deer 
Stalking, by Cameron of Lochiel. 
Stag Hunting, by Viscount Ebring- 
ton ; Cookery, by Alexander Innes 
Shand. With 10 Illustrations by J. 
Charlton and A. Thorburn. Cr. 
8vo., 5j. 

THE RABBIT. By J. E. Harting, &c. 

With Illustrations. [In preparation. 



WILDFOWL. By the Hon. John 

Scott Montagu. With Illustrations. 

[In preparation. 

THE SALMON. By the Hon. A. E. 

Gathorne-Hardy. With Illustrations. 

\In the press. 

THE TROUT. By the Marquis of 
Granby, &c. With Illustrations. 

\In the press. 



Andre\— Colonel Bogey's Sketch- 
book. Comprising an Eccentric Col- 
lection of Scribbles and Scratches found 
in disused Lockers and swept up in the 
Pavilion, together with sundry After- 
Dinner Sayings of the Colonel. By R. 
Andre, West Herts Golf Club. 
Oblong 4to., 2s. 6d. 

BADMINTON MAGAZINE (THE) 
OF SPORTS AND PASTIMES. 
Edited by Alfred E. T. Watson 
('Rapier'). With numerous Illustra- 
tions. Price is. Monthly. 
Vols. I. -V., 6s. each. 

DEAD SHOT (THE) : or, Sportsman's 
Complete Guide. Being a Treatise on j 
the Use of the Gun, with Rudimentary 
and Finishing Lessons on the Art of! 
Shooting Game of all kinds. Also 
Game-driving, Wildfowl and Pigeon- 1 
shooting, Dog-breaking, etc. By Marks- 
man. With numerous Illustrations. | 
Crown 8vo. , 10s. 6d. 

Ellis.— Chess Sparks ; or, Short and 
Bright Games of Chess. Collected and 
Arranged by J. H. Ellis, M.A. 8vo., 
4-r. 6d. 

Folkard. — The Wild-Fowler: A 
Treatise on Fowling, Ancient and 
Modern ; descriptive also of Decoys 
and Flight-ponds, Wild-fowl Shooting, 
Gunning-punts, Shooting-yachts, Sec. j 
Also Fowling in the Fens and in Foreign 
Countries, Rock-fowling, &c, &c. , by 
H. C. Folkard. With 13 Engravings 
on Steel, and several Woodcuts. 8vo. , 
i%s. 6d, 



Ford.— The Theory and Practice of 
Archery. By Horace Ford. New 
Edition, thoroughly Revised and Re- 
written by W. Butt, M.A. With a Pre- 
face by C. J. Longman, M.A. 8vo., 14J. 

Francis.— A Book on Angling : or, 
Treatise on the Art of Fishing in every 
Branch ; including full Illustrated List 
of Salmon Flies. By Francis Francis. 
With Portrait and Coloured Plates. 
Crown 8vo., 155. 

Gribson.— Tobogganing on Crooked 
Runs. By the Hon. Harry Gibson. 
With Contributions by F. de B. Strick- 
land and 'Lady-Tobogganer'. With 
40 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. , 6s. 

Graham. — Country Pastimes for 
Boys. By P. Anderson Graham. 
With 252 Illustrations from Drawings 
and Photographs. Crown 8vo. , 35. 6d. 

Lang.— Angling Sketches. By A. 
Lang. With 20 Illustrations. Crown 
8vo., 3s. 6d. 

Lillie.— Croquet : its History, Rules, 
and Secrets. By Arthur Lillie, 
Champion Grand National Croquet 
Club, 1872 ; Winner of the ' All-Comers' 
Championship,' Maidstone, 1896. With 
4 Full-page Illustrations by Lucien 
Davis, 15 Illustrations in the Text, and 
27 Diagrams. Crown 8vo., 6s. 

L n g m a n.— Chess Openings. By 
Frederick W. Longman. Fcp. 8vo., 
2.s. 6d. 

Madden.— The Diary of Master 
William Silence : A Study of Shake- 
speare and of Elizabethan Sport. By 
the Right Hon. D. H. Madden, Vice- 
Chancellor of the University of Dubliji, 
8vo. , i6j. 



12 LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 



Sport and Pastime — continued. 



Maskelyne.— Sharps and Flats : a 
Complete Revelation of the Secrets of 
Cheating at Games of Chance and Skill. 
By John Nevil Maskelyne, of the 
Egyption Hall. With 62 Illustrations. 
Crown 8vo., 6s. 
Park.— The Game of Golf. By 
William Park, Junr., Champion 
Golfer, 1887-89. With 17 Plates and 
26 Illustrations in the Text. Crown 
8vo., is. 6d 
Payne-Gall wey (Sir Ralph, Bart.). 
Letters to Young Shooters (First 
Series).OntheChoiceandUseofaGun. 
With 41 Illustrations. Cr. 8vo. , js. 6d. 
Letters to Young Shooters (Second 
Series). On the Production, Preserva- 
tion, and Killing of Game. With Direc- 
tions in Shooting Wood- Pigeons and 
Breaking-in Retrievers. With Por- 
trait and 103 Illustrations. Crown 
8vo., I2J-. 6d. 
Letters to Young Shooters (Third 
Series). Comprising a Short Natural 
History of the Wildfowl that are Rare 
or Common to the British Islands, 
with Complete Directions in Shooting 
Wildfowl on the Coast and Inland. 
With 200 Illustrations. Cr. 8vo. , i8j\ 
Pole (William). 
The Theory of the Modern Scien- 
tific Game of Whist. Fcp. 8vo., 
is. 6d. 
The Evolution of Whist : a Study 
of the Progressive Changes which the 
Game has undergone. Crown 8vo., 
2S. 6d. 



Proctor. — How to Play Whist : 
with the Laws and Etiquette of 
Whist. By Richard A. Proctor. 
Crown 8vo. , 3^. 6d. 

Kibbles dale.— The Queen's Hounds 
and Stag-Hunting Recollections. 
By Lord Ribblesdale, Master of the 
Buckhounds, 1892-95. With Introduc- 
tory Chapter on the Hereditary Master- 
ship by E. Burrows. With 24 Plates 
and 35 Illustrations in the Text, in- 
cluding reproductions from Oil Paintings 
in the possession of Her Majesty the 
Queen at Windsor Castle and Cumber- 
land Lodge, Original Drawings by G. 
D. Giles, and from Prints and Photo- 
graphs. 8vo. , 25J. 

Ronalds.— The Fly-Fisher's Ento- 
mology. By Alfred Ronalds. With 
20 Coloured Plates. 8vo., 14s. 

Thompson and Cannan. Hand- 
in-Hand Figure Skating. By Nor- 
cliffe G. Thompson and F. Laura 
Cannan, Members of the Skating Club. 
With an Introduction by Captain J. H. 
Thomson, R.A. With Illustrations. 
i6mo. , 6s. 

Wilcocks. The Sea Fisherman : Com- 
prising the Chief Methods of Hook and 
Line Fishing in the British and other 
Seas, and Remarks on Nets, Boats, and 
Boating. By J. C.Wilcocks. Illustrated. 
Crown 8vo. , 6s. 



Veterinary Medicine, &c. 



Steel (John Henry). 
A Treatise on the Diseases of the 

Dog. With 88 Illustrations. 8vo., 

10s. 6d. 
A Treatise on the Diseases of 

the Ox. With 119 Illustrations. 

8vo. , 15J. 
A Treatise on the Diseases of the 

Sheep. With 100 Illustrations. 8vo., 

X2.S. 

Outlines of Equine Anatomy : a 

Manual for the use of Veterinary 

Students in the Dissecting Room. 

Crown 8vo. , ys. 6d. 

ITitzwygram.-HoRSES and Stables. 

By Major-General Sir F. Fitzwygram, 

Bart. With 56 pages of Illustrations. 

8vo,, 3 s. 6d. net. 



Schreiner. — The Angora Goat 
(published under the auspices of the 
South African Angora Goat Breeders' 
Association), and a Paper on the Ostrich 
(reprinted from the Zoologist for Marfh, 
1897). By S. C. Cronwright 

SCHRIENER. 8VO. 

* Stonehenge.'— The Dog in Health 

and Disease. By 'Stonehenge'. 
With 78 Wood Engravings. 8vo. , js. 6d. 

Youatt (William). 

The Horse. Revised and enlarged. By 
W. Watson, M.R.C.V.S. With 52 
Wood Engravings. 8vo. , 7s. 6d. 

The Dog. Revised and enlarged. With 
33 Wood Engravings. 8vo., 6s. 



LONGMANS & cO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 13 



Mental, Moral, and Political Philosophy. 



LOGIC, RHETORIC 
Abbott.— The Elements of Logic. By 
T. K. Abbott, B.D. i2mo., 35. 

Aristotle. 

The Ethics: Greek Text, Illustrated 
with Essay and Notes. By Sir Alex- 
ander Grant, Bart. 2 vols. 8vo.,32j. 

An Introduction to Aristotle's 
Ethics. Books I. -IV. (Book X. c. 
vi.-ix. in an Appendix.) With a con- 
tinuous Analysis and Notes. By the 
Rev. Edward Moore, D.D. Cr. 
8vo., ioj-. 6d. 

Bacon (Francis). 
Complete Works. Edited by R. L. 

Ellis, James Spedding, and D. D. 

Heath. 7 vols. 8vo. , ^3 135. 6d. 
Letters and Life, including all his 

occasional Works. Edited by James 

Spedding. 7 vols. 8vo., £4 4s. 
The Essays: with Annotations. By 

Richard Whately, D.D. 8vo., 

10s. 6d. 
The Essays: Edited, with Notes. By 

F. Storr and C. H. Gibson. Cr. 

8vo. , y- 6d. 
The Essays. With Introduction, Notes, 

and Index. By E. A. Abbott, D. D. 

2 vols. Fcp. 8vo. , 6s. The Text and 

Index only, without Introduction and 

Notes, in One Volume. Fcp. 8vo., 

2s. 6d. 

Bain (Alexander). 

Mental Science. Crown 8vo. , 6j-. 6d. 

Moral Science. Crown 8vo. , 45. 6d. 

The two works as above can be had in one 

volume, price xos. 6d. 

Senses and the Intellect. 8vo. , 155. 

Emotions and the Will. 8vo., 155. 

Logic, Deductive and Inductive. 
Part I., 4J. Part II., 6s. 6d. 

Practical Essays. Crown 8vo., 2s. 

Bray.— The Philosophy of Neces- 
sity; or Law in Mind as in Matter. 
By Charles Bray. Crown 8vo. , $s. 

Crozier (John Beattie). 
History of Intellectual Develop- 
ment : on the Lines of Modern Evolu- 
tion. 

Vol. I. Greek and Hindoo Thought ; 
Graeco-Roman Paganism; Judaism; 
and Christianity down to the Closing 
of the Schools of Athens by Justi- 
nian, 529 A.D. 8vo., 14J. 



PSYCHOLOGY, &C. 

Crosier (John Beattie)— continued. 
Civilisation and Progress ; being 
the Outlines of a New System of 
Political, Religious and Social Philo- 
sophy. 8vo., 14J. 

Davidson.— The Logic of Defini- 
tion, Explained and Applied. By 
William L. Davidson, M.A. Crown 
8vo., 6s. 

Green (Thomas Hill). The Works of. 
Edited by R. L. Nettleship. 
Vols. I. and II. Philosophical Works. 

8vo., \6s. each. 
Vol. III. Miscellanies. With Index to 

the three Volumes, and Memoir. 8 vo. , 

2 1 j. 
Lectures on the Principles of 

Political Obligation. 8vo. , 5.5-. 

Hodgson (Shadworth H.). 

Time and Space: a Metaphysical 
Essay. 8vo. , 16s. 

The Theory of Practice : an Ethical 
Inquiry. 2 vols. 8vo., 24s. 

The Philosophy of Reflection. 2 
vols. 8vo., 21s. 

The Metaphysic of Experience. 4 
vols. I. General Analysis of Experi- 
ence. II. Positive Science. III. Anal- 
ysis of Conscious Action. IV. The 
Real Universe. 

Hume— The Philosophical Works 
of David Hume. Edited by T. H. 
Green and T. PI. Grose. 4 vols. 8vo. , 
56s. Or separately, Essays. 2 vols. 
28s. Treatise of Human Nature. 2 
vols. 28.5-. 

James. — The Will to Believe, and 
other Essays in Popular Philosophy. 
By William James, M.D., LL.D., &c. 

Crown 8vo. , ys. 6d. 

Justinian.— The Institutes of Jus- 
tinian: Latin Text, chiefly that of 
Huschke, with English Introduction, 
Translation, Notes, and Summary. By 
Thomas C. Sandars, M.A. 8vo. , i8j. 
Kant (Immanuel). 
Critique of Practical Reason, and 
Other Works on the Theory of 
Ethics. Translated by T. K.Abbott, 
B.D. With Memoir. 8vo., 12s. 6d. 
Fundamental Principles of the 
Metaphysic of Ethics. Trans- 
lated by T. K. Abbott, B.D. Crown 
8vo., 3-y. 



14 LONGMANS &» CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 



Mental, Moral and Political Philosophy- 



Kant (IMMANUEL) — continued. 
Introduction to Logic, and his 
Essay on the Mistaken Subtilty 
of the Four Figures. Translated 
by T. K. Abbott. 8vo. , 6s. 

Killick.— Handbook to Mill's Sys- 
tem of Logic. By Rev. A. H. Kil- 
lick, M.A, Crown 8vo., 3*. 6d. 

Ladd (George Trumbull). 

Outlines of Descriptive Psycho- 
logy : a Text-Book of Mental Science 
for Colleges and Normal Schools. 8vo. 

Philosophy of Knowledge: an In- 
quiry into the Nature, Limits and 
Validity of Human Cognitive Faculty. 
8vo. i8j. 

Philosophy of Mind: an Essay on 
the Metaphysics of Psychology. 8vo., 
16s. 

Elements of Physiological Psy- 
chology. 8vo., 21 s. 

Outlines of Physiological Psy- 
chology. A Text-Book of Mental 
Science for Academies and Colleges. 
8vo. , 12s. 

Psychology, Descriptive and Ex- 
planatory : a Treatise of the Pheno- 
mena, Laws, and Development of 
Human Mental Life. 8vo. , 21s. 

Primer of Psychology. Crown 8vo., 
S s. 6d. 
Lewes. — The History of Philosophy, 

from Thales to Comte. By George 

Henry Lewes. 2 vols. 8vo. , 32J. 

Lutoslawski.— The Origin and 
Growth of Plato's Logic. By W. 
Lutoslawski. 8vo., 21s. 

Max Miiller (F.). 
The Science of Thought. 8vo. , 21s. 
Three Introductory Lectures on 

the Science of Thought. 8vo., 

2S. 6d. net. 

Mill. — Analysis of the Phenomena 
of the Human Mind. By James 
Mill. 2 vols. 8vo., 28s. 

Mill (John Stuart). 
A System of Logic. Cr. 8vo., 3.5-. 6d. 
On Liberty. Cr. 8vo. , i|. /\d. 
Considerations on Representative 

Government. Crown 8vo., 2s. 
Utilitarianism. 8vo. , 2s. 6d, 



-continued. 

-continued. 



Mill (John Stuart)- 

Examination of Sir William 
Hamilton's Philosophy. 8vo. , 16s. 

Nature, the Utility of Religion, 
and Theism. Three Essays. 8vo. , 5.;. 

Romanes— Mind and Motion and 
Monism. By George John Romanes, 
LL.D., F.R.S. Crown 8vo., 4s. 6d. 



Stock (St. George). 
Deductive Logic. 



Fcp. 8vo., 3J. 6d. 



Lectures in the Lyceum; or, Aris- 
totle's Ethics for English Readers. 
Edited by St. George Stock. 
Crown 8vo. , js. 6d. 

Sully (James). 

The Human Mind : a Text-book of 
Psychology. 2 vols. 8vo. , 21s. 

Outlines of Psychology. Crown 
8vo. , gs. 

The Teacher's Handbook of Psy- 
chology. Crown 8vo. , 6s. 6d. 

Studies of Childhood. 8vo. 10s. 6d. 

Children's Ways : being Selections 
from the Author's ' Studies of Child- 
hood,' with some additional Matter. 
With 25 Figures in the Text. Crown 
8vo. , 4-y. 6d. 

Sutherland. — The Origin and 
Growth of the Moral Instinct. 
By Alexander Sutherland, M.A. 

Swinburne.— Picture Logic : an 
Attempt to Popularise the Science of 
Reasoning. By Alfred James Swin- 
burne, M.A. With 23 Woodcuts. 
Crown 8vo., 5s. 

Weber. — History of Philosophy. 
By Alfred Weber, Professor in the 
University of Strasburg, Translated by 
Frank Thilly, Ph.D. 8vo., 16s. 

Whately (Archbishop). 
Bacon's Essays. With Annotations. 

8vo., 10s. 6d. 
Elements of Logic. Cr. 8vo.,4J. 6d. 
Elements of Rhetoric. Cr. 8vo., 

4s. 6d. 
Lessons on Reasoning. Fcp. 8vo, p 

is. 6d. 



LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. i 5 



Mental, Moral and Political Philosophy— continued. 



Zeller (Dr. Edward, Professor in the 
University of Berlin). 

The Stoics, Epicureans, and Scep- 
tics. Translated by the Rev. O. J. 
Reichel, M.A. Crown 8vo., 155. 

Outlines of the History of Greek 
Philosophy. Translated by Sarah 
F. Alleyne and Evelyn Abbott. 
Crown 8vo. , xos. 6d. 



Zeller (Dr. Edward)— continued. 
Plato and the Older Academy. 
Translated by Sarah F. Alleyne 
and Alfred Goodwin, B. A. Crown 
8vo.. 1 8 s. 

Socrates and the SocraticSchools. 
Translated by the Rev. O. J. Reichel, 
M.A. Crown 8vo., 10s. 6d. 

Aristotle and the Earlier Peri- 
patetics. Translated by B. F. G. 
Costelloe, M.A., and J. H. Muir- 
HEAD, M.A. 2 vols. Cr. 8vo., 24s. 



MANUALS OF CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHY. 

( Stonyhurst Series. J 

Moral Philosophy (Ethics and Natu- 
ral Law). By Joseph Rickaby, S. J. 
5* 



A Manual of Political Economy, 
By C. S. Devas, M.A. Cr. 8vo., 6s. 6d 



First Principles of Knowledge 
John Rickaby, S.J. Crown 8vo. 



By 



General Metaphysics. By John Rick- 
aby, S.J. Crown 8vo., 5-y. 

Logic. By Richard F. Clarke, SJ. 
Crown 8vo., 5s. 



Crown 8vo. 



Natural Theology. By Bernard 
Boedder, S.J. Crown 8vo., 6s. 6d. 

Psychology. By Michael Maher, 
S.J. Crown 8vo., 6s. 6d. 



History and Science of Language, &c. 

Max Miiller (F.) 



Davidson. — Leading and Important 
English Words : Explained and Ex- 
emplified. By William L. David- 
son, M.A. Fcp. 8vo., y. 6d. 

Farrar.— Language and Languages. 
By F. W. Farrar, D.D., F.R.S., Cr. 
8vo., 6s. 



onhnued. 



Three Lectures on the Science 
of Language, and its Place in 
General Education, delivered at 
Oxford, 1889. Crown 8vo., 3s. net. 



Graham.— English Synonyms, Classi- 
fied and Explained : with Practical 
Exercises. By G. F. Graham. Fcap. 
8vo., 6s. 



Max Miiller (F.). 

The Science of Language, Founded 
on Lectures delivered at the Royal 
Institution in 1861 and 1863. 2 vols. 
Crown 8vo., 21s. 



S-oget. — Thesaurus of English 
Words and Phrases. Classified and 
Arranged so as to Facilitate the Ex- 
pression of Ideas and assist in Literary 
Composition. By Peter Mark Roget, 
M. D. , F. R. S. Recomposed throughout, 
enlarged and improved, partly from the 
Author's Notes, and with a full Index, 
by the Author's Son, John Lewis 
Roget. Crown 8vo., 10s. 6d. 



Biographies of Words, and the Whately.— English Synonyms By 
Home of the Aryas. Crown 8 vo., E. Jane Whately. Fcap. 8vo. v 

7s. 6d. \ ' 



16 LONGMANS &> CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 



Political Economy and Economics. 



Ashley.— English Economic History 
and Theory. By W. J. Ashley. 
Cr. 8vo., Part L, 5J. Part II., ioj. 6d. 

Bagehot. — Economic Studies. By 
Walter Bagehot. Cr. 8vo., 3s. 6d. 

Barnett.— Practicable Socialism : 
Essays on Social Reform. By the Rev. 
S. A. and Mrs. Barnett. Cr. 8vo. , 6s. 

Brassey.— Papers and Addresses on 
Work and Wages. By Lord Brassey. 
Crown 8vo. , 5J. 

Charming.— The Truth about Agri- 
cultural Depression : An Economic 
Study of the Evidence of the Royal 
Commission. By Francis Allston 
Channing, M.P. , one of the Commis- 
sion. Crown 8vo., 6s. 

Devas.— A Manual of Political 
Economy. By C. S. Devas, M.A. 
Crown 8vo., 6s. 6d. 

Do well. — A History of Taxation 
and Taxes in England, from the 
Earliest Times to the Year 1885. By 
Stephen Dowell (4 vols. 8vo. ). Vols. 
I. and II. The History of Taxation, 
2 1 s. Vols. III. and IV. The History of 
Taxes, 2U. 

Jordan.— The Standard of Value. 
By William Leighton Jordan. 
Crown 8vo. , 6s. 

Macleod (Henry Dunning). 
Bimetalism. 8vo., 5J. net. 
The Elements of Banking. Crown 

8vo. , 3.J. 6d. 
The Theory and Practice of Bank- 
ing. Vol. I. 8vo. , 12s. Vol. II. IAS. 



Macleod (Henry Dunning)— cont. 
The Theory of Credit. 8vo. Vol. 
I. ioj. net. Vol. II. , Part I. , ioj. net. 
Vol. II.- Part II., ioj. net. 
A Digest of the Law of Bills of 
Exchange, Bank Notes, &c. 

[In the press. 
Mill.— Political Economy. By John 
Stuart Mill. 

Popular Edition. Crown 8vo. , 3J 6d. 
Library Edition. 2 vols. 8vo. , 30J. 
Mulhall. — Industries and Wealth 
of Nations. By Michael G. Mul- 
hall, F.S.S. With 32 Full-page 
Diagrams. Crown 8vo., 8j. 6d. 
Soderini.— Socialism and Catholi- 
cism. From the Italian of Count 
Edward Soderini. By Richard 
Jenery-Shee. With a Preface by 
Cardinal Vaughan. Crown 8vo. , 6s. 
Symes. — Political Economy : a Short 
Text-book of Political Economy. With 
a Supplementary Chapter on Socialism. 
By J. E. Symes, M.A. Crown 8vo. , 2j. 6d. 
Toynbee.— Lectures on the In- 
dustrial Revolution of the 18th 
Century in England. By Arnold 
Toynbee. With a Memoir of the 
Author by Benjamin Jowett, D.D. 
8vo. , ioj. 6d. 
ViTebD (Sidney and Beatrice). 
The History of Trade Unionism. 
With Map and full Bibliography ot 
the Subject. 8vo., i8j. 
Industrial Democracy: a Study in 
Trade Unionism. 2 vols. 8vo. , 25s. net. 



STUDIES IN ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE. 

Issued under the auspices of the London School of Economics and Political Science. 

Deploige's Referendum en Suisse. 
Translated with Introduction and Notes, 
by C. P. Trevelyan, M.A. 



The History of Local Rates in Eng- 
land: Five Lectures. By Edwin 
Cannan, M.A. Crown 8vo.,' 2J. 6d. 
German Social Democracy. By 
Bertrand Russell, B.A. With an 
Appendix on Social Democracy and 
the Woman Question in Germany by 
Alys Russell, B.A. Cr. 8vo., 3J. 6d. 
Select Documents Illustrating the 
History of Trade Unionism. 

1. The Tailoring Trade. Edited by 

W. F. Galton. With a Preface 

by Sidney Webb, LL.B. Crown 

8vo., 5J. 

Local Variations of Rates and 

Wages. By F. W. Laurence, B.A., 

Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. 

[In the press. 



[In preparation 

Select Documents Illustrating the 

State Regulation of Wages. 

Edited, with Introduction and Notes, 

by W. A. S. Hewins, M.A. 

[In preparation. 

Hungarian Gild Records . Edited by 
Dr. Julius Mandello, of Budapest. 

[In preparation. 

The Relations between England 
and the Hanseatic League. By Miss 
E. A. MacArthur. [In preparation. 

The Economic Policy of Colbert. 
By A. J. Sargent, B.A. [In preparation. 



LONGMANS 6* CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 



17 



Evolution, Anthropology, &c. 



Clodd (Edward). 

The Story of Creation : a Plain Ac- 
count of Evolution. With jj Illustra- 
tions. Crown 8vo. , 3s. 6d. 

A Primer of Evolution : being a 
Popular Abridged Edition of ' The 
Story of Creation '. With Illus- 
trations. Fcp. 8vo., is. 6d. 

Lang. — Custom and Myth: Studies 
of Early Usage and Belief. By Andrew 
Lang. With 15 Illustrations. Crown 
8vo., 3-y. 6d. 

Lubbock.— The Origin of Civilisa- 
tion and the Primitive Condition of 
Man. By Sir J. Lubbock, Bart., M. P. 
With 5 Plates and 20 Illustrations in the 
Text. 8vo. , i8j. 



Romanes (George John). 
Darwin, and After Darwin : an Ex- 
position of the Darwinian Theory, 
and a Discussion on Post-Darwinian 
Questions. 

Part I. The Darwinian Theory. 
With Portrait of Darwin and 125 
Illustrations. Crown 8vo.,'ioj. 6d. 
Part II. Post-Darwinian Ques- 
tions : Heredity and Utility. With 
Portrait of the Author and 5 Illus- 
trations. Cr. 8vo. , 10s. 6d. 
Part III. Post-Darwinian Ques- 
tions : Isolation and Physiological 
Selection. Crown 8vo. , $s. 

An Examination of Weismannism. 
Crown 8vo. , 6s. 

Essays. Edited by C. Lloyd 
Morgan, Principal of University 
College, Bristol. Crown 8vo. , 6s. 



Classical Literature, Translations, &c. 



Abbott.— Hellenica. A Collection of 
Essays on Greek Poetry, Philosophy, 
History, and Religion. Edited by 
Evelyn Abbott, MA., LL.D. 8vo.,i6j\ 

JEschylus.— Eumenides of ^Eschy- 
LUS. With Metrical English Translation. 
By J. F. Davies. 8vo. , js. 

Aristophanes.— The Acharnians of 
Aristophanes, translated into English 
Verse. By R. Y. Tyrrell. Cr. 8vo. , is. 

Aristotle.— Youth and Old Age, 
Life and Death, and Respiration. 
Translated, with Introduction and 
Notes, by W. Ogle, M.A., M.D., 
F.R.C.P. , sometime Fellow of Corpus 
Christi College, Oxford. 8vo. , 7s. 6d. 

Becker (W. A.). Translated by the 

Rev. F. Metcalfe, B.D. 

Gallus : or, Roman Scenes in the Time 

of Augustus. With 26 Illustrations. 

Post 8vo. , y. 6d. 

Charicles : or, Illustrations of the 

Private Life of the Ancient Greeks. 

With 26 Illustrations. Post 8vo. , 3s. 6d. 

Butler. — The Authoress of the 
Odyssey, where and when She 
wrote, who She was, the Use She 
made of the Iliad, and how the 
Poem grew under her hands. By 
Samuel Butler, Author of ' Erewhon,' 
&c. With 14 Illustrations and 4 Maps. 
8vo., 10s. 6d. 



Cicero.— Cicero's Correspondence. 
By R. Y. Tyrrell. Vols. I., II., III. 
8vo., each 12s. Vol. IV., 15s. Vol. 
V., 145. 

Egbert. — Introduction to the 
Study of Latin Inscriptions. By 
James C. Egbert, Junr., Ph.D. With 
numerous Illustrations and Facsimiles. 
Square crown 8vo., 16s. 

Horace.— The Works of Horace, 
rendered into English Prose. With 
Life, Introduction, and Notes. By 
William Coutts, M.A. Crown 8vo., 
55. net. 

Lang. — Homer and the Epic. By 
Andrew Lang. Crown 8vo. , gs. net. 

liiieaii.— The Pharsalia of Lucan. 
Translated into Blank Verse. By 
Sir Edward Ridley. 8vo., 14*. 

Mackail.— Select Epigrams from 
the Greek Anthology. By J. W. 
Mackail. Edited with a Revised Text, 
Introduction, Translation, and Notes 
8vo. , 16s. 

Rich.— A Dictionary of Roman and 
Greek Antiquities. By A. Rich, 
B.A. With 2000 Woodcuts. Crown 
8vo., 7s. 6d. 



18 LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 



Classical Literature, Translations, &c. — continued. 



Sophocles.— Translated into English [ 
Verse. By Robert Whitelaw, M. A. , 
Assistant Master in Rugby School. Cr. 
8vo., 8s. 6d. 

Tacitus.— The History of P. Cor- 
nelius Tacitus. Translated into 
English, with an Introduction and 
Notes, Critical and Explanatory, by 
Albert William Quill, M.A., 
T.C.D. 2 Vols. Vol. I., 8vo., js. 6d., 
Vol. II. , 8vo., 12s. 6d. 

Tyrrell.— Translations into Greek 
and Latin Verse. Edited by R. Y. 
Tyrrell. 8vo., 6s. 



Virgil— The ^Ene id of Virgil. Trans- 
lated into English Verse by John Con- 
ington. Crown 8vo., 6s. 

The Poems of Virgil. Translated 
into English Prose by John Coning- 
TON. Crown 8vo. , 6s. 

The ^Eneid of Virgil, freely translated 
into English Blank Verse. By W. J. 
Thornhill. Crown 8vo. , 7s. 6d. 

The ^Eneid of Virgil. Translated 
into English Verse by James 
Rhoades. 

Books I.- VI. Crown 8vo. , 5-r. 
Books VII. -XII. Crown 8vo., 55. 



Poetry and the Drama. 



Allingham (William). 

Irish Songs and Poems. With Fron- 
tispiece of the Waterfall of Asaroe. 
Fcp. 8vo., 6s. 

Laurence Bloomfield. With Por- 
trait of the Author. Fcp. 8vo. , 35. 6d. 

Flower Pieces ; Day and Night 
Songs ; Ballads. With 2 Designs 
by D. G. Rossetti. Fcp. 8vo. , 6s. ; 
large paper edition, 12s. 

Life and Phantasy : with Frontis- 
piece by Sir J. E. Millais, Bart., 
and Design by Arthur Hughes. 
Fcp. 8vo. . 6s. ; large paper edition, 12s. 

Thought and Word, and Ashby 
Manor : a Play. Fcp. 8vo. , 6s. ; large 
paper edition, 12s. 

Blackberries. Imperial i6mo. , 6s. 

Sets of the above 6 vols, may be had in 
uniform half-parchment binding, price 30J. 



Armstrong (G. F. Savage). 

Poems : Lyrical and Dramatic. 
8vo. , 6s. 



Fcp. 



King Saul. (The Tragedy of Israel, 
Part I. ) Fcp. 8vo. 5s. 

King David. (The Tragedy of Israel, 
Part II.) Fcp. 8vo., 6s. 



Armstrong (G. F. Savage)— continued. 
King Solomon. (The Tragedy of 

Israel, Part III. ) Fcp. 8vo. , 6s. 
Ugone: a Tragedy. Fcp. 8vo., 6s. 
A Garland from Greece: Poems. 

Fcp. 8vo., ys. 6d. 
Stories of Wicklow: Poems. Fcp. 

8vo. , ys. 6d. 
Mephistopheles in Broadcloth: a 

Satire. Fcp. 8vo., 4s. 
One in the Infinite: a Poem. Cr. 

8vo., ys. 6d. 

Armstrong. — The Poetical Works 
of Edmund J. Armstrong. Fcp. 
8vo., 5-y. 
! 

Arnold.— The Light of the World : 

or, the Great Consummation. By Sir 
Edwin Arnold. With 14 Illustra- 
tions after Holman Hunt. Crown 
8vo., 6s. 

Beesly (A. H.). 

Ballads, and other Verse. Fcp. 
8vo. , $s. 

D ANTON, AND OTHER VERSE. Fcp. 
8vo. , $s. 6d. 
Bell (Mrs. Hugh). 

Chamber Comedies: a Collection of 
Plays and Monologues for the Draw- 
ing Room. Crown 8vo. , 6s. 

Fairy Tale Plays, and Howto Act 
Them. With 91 Diagrams and 52 
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 6s. 



LONGMANS &> CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. ig 



Poetry and the Drama 

Cochrane (Alfred). 
The Kestrel's NEST.and other Verses, 

Fcp. 8vo. , y. 6d. 
Leviore Plectro : Occasional Verses 
Fcp. 8vo., y. 6d. 



continued. 

By W. E. H. Lecky. 



Earl of) (Owen 






Douglas. — Poems of a Country 
Gentleman. By Sir George Doug- 
las, Bart. Crown 8vo., y. 6d. 

Goethe. 

Faust, Part I., the German Text, with 
Introduction and Notes. By Albert 
M. Selss, Ph.D., M. A. Cr. 8vo.,55. 

The First Part of the Tragedy 
of Goethe's Faust in English. 
By Thos. E. Webb, LL.D. New 
and Cheaper Edition, with the Death 
of Faust, from the Second Part. 
Crown 8vo. , 6s. 

G-urney (Rev. Alfred, M.A.). 
Day-Dreams: Poems. Cr. 8vo, y. 6d. 
Love's Fruition, and other Poems. 
Fcp. 8vo., -2S. 6d. 

Hampton.— For Remembrance. A 
Record of Life's Beginnings. Three 
Poetical Quotations for Every Day in 
the Year for Birth, Baptism, Death. 
Illustrative of our Life, Temporal, Spirit- 
ual, Eternal. Interleaved for Names. 
Compiled by the Lady Laura Hamp- 
ton. Fcp. 8vo., 3-r. 6d. 

Ingelow (Jean). 
Poetical Works. 2 vols. Fcp.8vo.,i2^. 
Complete in One Volume. Crown 
8vo., js. 6d. 
Lyrical and Other Poems. Selected 
from the Writings of Jean Ingelow. 
Fcp. 8vo. , 2s. 6d. ; cloth plain, 3*. 
cloth gilt. 

Lang (Andrew). 

Grass of Parnassus. Fcp. 8vo., 
2S. 6d. net. 

The Blue Poetry Book. Edited by 
Andrew Lang. With 100 Illustra- 
tions. Crown 8vo. , 6s. 

L ay ard.— Songs in Many Moods. 
By Nina F. Layard. And The 
Wandering Albatross, &c. By 
Annie Corder. In one volume. 
Crown 8vo., s s * 



Leeky.— Poems 
Fcp. 8vo., s s - 

Lytton (The 

Meredith). 

Marah. Fcp. 8vo., 65. 6d. 

King Poppy: a Fantasia. With 1 

Plate and Design on Title-Page by 

Sir Edward Burne-Jones, A.R.A. 

Crown 8vo. , io-y. 6d. 
The Wanderer. Cr. 8vo. , 10s. 6d. 
Lucile. Crown 8vo., 10s. 6d. 
Selected Poems. Cr. 8vo., 10^. 6d. 
Macaulay.— Lays of Ancient Rome, 
with Ivry, and the Armada. By 
Lord Macaulay. 
Illustrated by G. SCHARF. Fcp. 4to., 

10s. 6d. 
Bijou Edition. 



i8mo. 



6d., 



jilt top. 

i Popular Edition. 

Fcp. 4to., 6d. sewed, is. cloth. 
Illustrated by J. R. Weguelin. Crown 

8vo. , 3-f. 6d. 
Annotated Edition. Fcp. 8vo., is. 
sewed, is. 6d. cloth. 
Maedonald (George, LL.D.). 
A Book of Strife, in the Form of 
the Diary of an Old Soul: Poems. 
i8mo. , 6s. 
Rampolli : Growths from a Long- 
Planted Root; being Translations, 
new and old (mainly in verse), chiefly 
from the German ; along with ' A 
Year's Diary of an Old Soul '. Crown 
8vo. , 6s. 
Moffat— Crickety Cricket : Rhymes 
and Parodies. By Douglas Moffat. 
With Frontispiece by Sir Frank Lock- 
wood, Q.C., M.P., and 53 Illustrations 
by the Author. Crown 8vo., 2s. 6d. 

Morris (William). 
Poetical Works— Library Edition. 
Complete in Ten Volumes. Crown 
8vo. , price 6s. each : — 
The Earthly Paradise. 4 vols. 6j. 

The Life and Death of Jason. 6s. 
The Defence of Guenevere, and 

other Poems. 6s. 
The Story of Sigurd the Volsung, 

and the Fall of the Niblungs. 6s. 
Love is Enough ; or, The Freeing of 

Pharamond : a Morality ; and POEMS 

by the Way. 6s, 



2o LONGMANS &* CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 



Poetry and the Drama.— continued. 



Morris ( William )— continued. 
The Odyssey of Homer. Done into 

English Verse. 65. 
The ^Eneids of Virgil. Done into 

English Verse. 6s. 

Certain of the Poetical Works may also be 

had in the following Editions : — 
The Earthly Paradise. 

Popular Edition. 5 vois. i2mo. , 
25J. ; or 5s. each, sold separately. 
The same in Ten Parts, 25s. ; or 2s. 6d. 

each, sold separately. 
Cheap Edition, in 1 vol. Cr. 8vo. , js. 6d. 
Love is Enough ; or, The Freeing of 

Pharamond : a Morality. Square 

crown 8vo. , ys. 6d. 
Poems by the Way. Square crown 

8vo. , 6s. 
%* For Mr. William Morris's Prose 
Works, see pp. 22 and 31. 

!N"esbit.— Lays and Legends. By E. 
Nesbit (Mrs. Hubert Bland). First 
Series. Crown 8vo., 3^. 6d. Second 
Series, with Portrait. Crown 8vo., $s. 

Riley (James Whitcomb). 
Old Fashioned Roses 



i2mo. , $s. 
A Child-World : 



Poems. 
Poems. Fcp. 8vo., 



Rubaiya't of Doc Sifers. With 43 
Illustrations by C. M. Relyea. 
Crown 8vo. , 6s. 



Romanes. — A Selection from the 
Poems of George John Romanes, 
M.A., LL.D., F.R.S. With an Intro- 
duction by T. Herbert Warren, 
President of Magdalen College, Oxford, 
Crown 8vo, 4s. 6d. 

Shakespeare.— Bowdler's Family 
Shakespeare. With 36 Woodcuts. 
1 vol. 8vo., 14s. Or in 6 vols. Fcp. 
8vo., 21s. 

The Shakespeare Birthday Book. 
By Mary F. Dunbar. 32mo., is. 6d. 

Tupper.— Poems. By John Lucas 
Tupper. Selected and Edited by 
William Michael Rossetti. Crown 

8vo. , 55. 

Wordsworth. — Selected Poems. 
By Andrew Lang. With Photo- 
gravure Frontispiece of Rydal Mount. 
With 16 Illustrations and numerous 
Initial Letters. By Alfred Parsons, 
A.R.A. Crown 8vo. , gilt edges, 6s. 



Wordsworth and Coleridge.— A 

Description of the Wordsworth 
and Coleridge Manuscripts in the 
Possession of Mr. T. Norton Long- 
man. Edited, with Notes, by W. HALE 
White. With 3 Facsimile Reproduc- 
tions. 4to., 10s. 6d. 



Fiction, Humour, &c. 



Allingham.— Crooked Paths. By 
Francis Allingham. Cr. 8vo. , 6s. 



Anstey (F. , Author of ' Vice Versa '). 

Voces Populi. Reprinted from 
' Punch '. First Series. With 20 
Illustrations by J. Bernard Part- 
ridge. Cr. 8vo., 35. 6d. 

The Man from Blankley's : a Story 
in Scenes, and other Sketches. With 
24 Illustrations by J. Bernard Part- 
ridge. Post 4to. , 6s. 



Astor. — A Journey in Other Worlds : 
a Romance of the Future. By John 
Jacob Astor. With 10 Illustrations. 
Cr, 8vo., 6s. 



Beaconsfleld (The Earl of). 
Novels and Tales. 

Complete inn vols. Cr. 8vo. , is. 6d. 
each. 



Vivian Grey. 
TheYoungDuke, &c. 
Alroy, Ixion, &c. 
Contarini Fleming, 

&c. 
Tancred. 



Sybil. 

Henrietta Temple. 

Venetia. 

Coningsby. 

Lothair. 

Endymion. 



Novels and Tales. The Hughenden 
Edition. With 2 Portraits and n 
Vignettes, n vols. Cr. 8vo., 42J. 

Black.— The Princess Desiree. By 
Clementia Black. With 8 Illustra- 
tions. Crown 8vo. , 6s. 

Deland (Margaret). 

Philip and his Wife. Cr. 8vo. , 2s. 6d. 
The Wisdom of Fools : Stories. Cr, 
8vo., $s. 



LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 



Fiction, Humour, &c. — continued. 



Diderot. — Rameau's Nephew : a 
Translation from Diderot's Autographic 
Text. By Sylvia Margaret Hill. 
Crown 8vo. , 3s. 6d. 

DougaU. — Beggars All. By L. 
Dougall. Crown 8vo., 3*. 6d. 

Doyle (A. Conan). 

Micah Clarke : a Tale of Monmouth's 

Rebellion. With 10 Illustrations. 

Cr. 8vo., 3.?. 6d. 
The Captain of the Polestar, and 

other Tales. Cr. 8vo. , 3^. 6d. 
The Refugees : a Tale of the Hugue- 
nots. With 25 Illustrations. Crown 

8vo., 3s. 6d. 
The Stark-Munro Letters. Cr. 

8vo. , 3.9. 6d. 
Farrar (F. W. , Dean of Canterbury). 
Darkness and Dawn : or, Scenes in 

the Days of Nero. An Historic Tale. 

Cr. 8vo. , 7s. 6d. 
Gathering Clouds : a Tale of the 

Days of St. Chrysostom. Crown 

8vo. , 7s. 6d. 
Fowler (Edith H.). 
The Young Pretenders. A Story of 

Child Life. With 12 Illustrations by 

Philip Burne-Jones. Cr. 8vo., 6s. 
The Professor's Children. With 

24 Illustrations by Ethel Kate 

Burgess. Crown 8vo. , 6s. 
Froude.— The Two Chiefs of Dun- 
boy : an Irish Romance of the Last 
Century. By James A. Froude. Cr. 
8vo. , 3s. 6d. 
Gilkes.— Kallistratus : An Autobio- 
graphy. A Story of the Hannibal and 
the Second Punic War. By A. H. 
Gilkes, M.A., Master of Dulwich Col- 
lege. With 3 Illustrations by Maurice 
Greiffenhagen. Crown 8vo. , 6s. 
Graham.— The Red Scaur : a Story 
of the North Country. By P. Ander- 
son Graham. Crown 8vo., 6s. 
Gurdon.— Memories and Fancies : 
Suffolk Tales and other Stories ; Fairy 
Legends ; Poems ; Miscellaneous Arti- 
cles. By the late Lady Camilla 
Gurdon, Author of 'Suffolk Folk- 
Lore '. Crown 8vo. , 5J. 
Haggard (H. Rider). 
Heart of the World. With 15 

Illustrations, Crown 8vo., 6^. 
Joan Haste. With 20 Illustrations. 

Cr. 8vo. , 3J. 6d, 



Haggard (H. Rider) — continued. 

The People of the Mist. With 16 
Illustrations. Crown 8vo. , y. 6d. 

Montezuma's Daughter. With 24 
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 3s. 6d. 

She. With 32 Illustrations. Cr. 8vo. , 
3s. 6d. 

Allan Quatermain. With 31 Illus- 
trations. Crown 8vo., 3^. 6d. 

Maiwa's Revenge. Crown 8vo., is. 6d. 

Colonel Quaritch, V.C. Cr. 8vo., 
3s. 6d. 

Cleopatra. With 29 Illustrations 
Crown 8vo., 3^. 6d. 

Beatrice. Cr. 8vo., 3s. 6d. 

Eric Brighteyes. With 51 Illustra- 
tions. Cr. 8vo., 3s. 6d. 

Nada the Lily. With 23 Illustra- 
tions. Cr. 8vo., 3s. 6d. 

Allan's Wife. With 34 Illustrations. 
Crown 8vo. , 3s. 6d. 

The Witch's Head. With 16 Illus- 
trations. Crown 8vo., 3^. 6d. 

Mr. Meeson's Will. With 16 Illus- 
trations. Crown 8vo., 3s. 6d. 

Dawn. With 16 Illustrations. Crown 
8vo., 3s. 6d. 

Haggard and Lang.— The World's 
Desire. By H. Rider Haggard and 
Andrew Lang. With 27 Illustrations. 
Crown 8vo. , 3s. 6d. 

Harte. — In the Carquinez Woods, 
and other Stories. By Bret Harte. 
Cr. 8vo., 3^. 6d. 

Hope.— The Heart of Princess 
Osra. By Anthony Hope. With 9 
Illustrations by John Williamson. 
Crown 8vo., 6s. 

Hornung.— The Unbidden Guest. 
By E. W. Hornung. Cr. 8vo., 3s. 6d. 

Jerome. — Sketches in Lavender • 
Blue and Green. By Jerome K. 
Jerome, Author of ' Three Men in a 
Boat,' &c. Crown 8vo., 6s. 

Lang.— A Monk of Fife : a Story of 
the Days of Joan of Arc. By Andrew 
Lang. With 13 Illustrations by Selwyn 
Image. Crown 8vo., 3s. 6d. 

Levett- Yeats (S.). 
The Chevalier d'Auriac. Crown 

8vo. , 6s. 
A Galahad of the Creeks, and 

other Stories. Crown 8vo, , 6s, 



LONGMANS 6* CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 



Fiction, Humour, &c. — continued. 

Olipnant.— Old Mr. Tredgold. By 



."Lyall (Edna). 

The Autobiography of a Slander. 
Fcp. 8vo., is. sewed. 

Presentation Edition. With 20 Illus- 
trations by Lancelot Speed. Cr. 
8vo. , 2J-. 6d. net. 

The Autobiography of a Truth. 
Fcp. 8vo., is. sewed ; is. 6d. cloth. 

Doreen : The Story of a Singer. Cr. 
8vo. , 6s. 

Wayfaring Men. Crown 8vo. , 6s. 



Melville (G. J. Whyte) 



The Gladiators. 
The Interpreter. 
Good for Nothing. 
The Queen's Maries. 



Holmby House. 
Kate Coventry. 
Digby Grand. 
General Bounce. 



Cr. 8vo. , is. 6d. each. 

Merriman.— Flotsam : a Story of the 
Indian Mutiny. By Henry Seton Mer- 
riman. With Frontispiece and Vignette 
by H. G. Massey, A.R.E. Cr. 8vo., 6s. 

Morris (William). 
The Sundering Flood. Crown 8vo., 

js. 6d. 
The Water of the Wondrous Isles. 

Crown 8vo., 7s. 6d. 
The Well at the World's End. 2 

vols., 8vo., 28s. 
The Story of the Glittering Plain, 

which has been also called The Land 

of the Living Men, or The Acre of 

the Undying. Square post 8vo. , 55. 

net. 
The Roots of the Mountains, 

Written in Prose and Verse. Square 

crown 8vo. , 8s. 
A Tale of the House of the Wolf- 

ings. Written in Prose and Verse. 

Square crown 8vo. , 6.J. 
A Dream of John Ball, and a 

King's Lesson. i2mo., is. 6d. 
News from Nowhere ; or, An Epoch 

of Rest. Post 8vo. , is. 6d. 
%* For Mr. William Morris's Poetical 
Works, see p. 19. 

Newman (Cardinal). 

Loss and Gain : The Story of a Con- 
vert. Crown 8vo. Cabinet Edition, 
6s. ; Popular Edition, y. 6d. 

Callista : A Tale of the Third Cen- 
tury. Crown 8vo. Cabinet Edition, 
6s. ; Popular Edition, 3s. 6d. 



Mrs. Oliphant. Crown 8vo., 2s. 6d. 

Phillipps-Wolley.— Snap : a Legend 
of the Lone Mountain. By C. Phil- 
lipps-Wolley. With 13 Illustrations. 
Crown 8vo., 3^. 6d. 

Quintana.— The Cid Campeador : 
an Historical Romance. By D. 
Antonio de Trueba y la Quintana. 
Translated from the Spanish by Henry 
J. Gill, M.A., T.C.D. Crown 8vo., 6s. 

Rhoscomyl (Owen). 
The Jewel of Ynys Galon : being 
a hitherto unprinted Chapter in the 
History of the Sea Rovers. With 12 
Illustrations by Lancelot Speed. 
Crown 8vo. , 3^. 6d. 
Battlement and Tower : a Romance. 
With Frontispiece by R. Caton 
Woodville. Crown 8vo., 6s. 
For the White Rose of Arno : A 
Story of the Jacobite Rising of 1745. 
Crown 8vo. , 6s. 
Sew ell (Elizabeth M.). 
A Glimpse of the World. Amy Herbert. 
Laneton Parsonage. Cleve Hall. 

Margaret Percival. Gertrude. 

Katharine Ashton. Home Life. 

The Earl's Daughter. After Life. 
The Experience of Life. Ursula. Ivors. 
Cr. 8vo., is. 6d. each, cloth plain. 2s. 6d. 
each, cloth extra, gilt edges. 
Stevenson (Robert Louis). 
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll 
and Mr. Hyde. Fcp. 8vo., is. 
sewed, 15. 6d. cloth. 
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll 
and Mr. Hyde ; with Other Fables. 
Crown 8vo. , 3^. 6d. 
More New Arabian Nights— The 
Dynamiter. By Robert Louis 
Stevenson and Fanny Van de 
Grift Stevenson. Crown 8vo., 
3.*. 6d. 
The Wrong Box. By Robert Louis 
Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne. 
Crown 8vo., 3^. 6d. 

Suttner. — Lay Down Your Arms 
{Dig Wqffen Nieder) : The Autobio- 
graphy of Martha Tilling. By Bertha 
von Suttner. Translated by T. 
Holmes. Crown 8vo., is. 6d. 

Taylor. — Early Italian Love- 
Stories. Edited and Retold by Una 
Taylor. With 12 Illustrations by H. 
J. Ford, 



LONGMANS &> CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 23 






Trollope (Anthony). 
The Warden. Cr. 8vo., is. 6d. 
Barchester Towers. Cr. 8vo. , is. 6d 



Fiction, Humour, to.— continued. 

Watson.— Racing and Chasing : a 
Volume of Sporting Stories and 
Sketches. By Alfred E. T. Wat- 
son, Editor of the ' Badminton Maga- 
zine'. With 52 Illustrations. Crown 
8vo., js. 6d. 

Weyman (Stanley). 
The House of the Wolf. Cr. 8vo., 

■y. 6d. 
A Gentleman of France. Cr. 8vo., 6j« 
The Red Cockade. Cr. 8vo. , 6s. 
Shrewsbury. With 24 Illustrations. 
Crown 8vo., 6s. 

Whishaw (Fred.). 

A Boy ar of the Terrible : a Romance 
of the Court of Ivan the Cruel, First 
Tzar of Russia. With 12 Illustrations 
by H. G. Massey, A.R.E. Cr. 8vo., 
6s. 
A Tsar's Gratitude. Cr. 8vo., 6s. 



Walford (L. B.). . 

Iv a Kildare : a Matrimonial Problem. 

Crown 8vo. , 6s. 
Mr. Smith : a Part of his Life. 

8vo., 2S. 6d. 
The Baby's Grandmother. 

8vo., 2.s. 6d 
Cousins. Crown 8vo., 2s. 6£. 
Troublesome Daughters. 

8vo. , 2S. 6d. 
Pauline. Crown 8vo., 2s. 6d. 
Dick Netherby. Crown 8vo 
The History of a Week. 

8vo. 2S. 6d. 
A Stiff-necked Generation 

8vo. 25. 6d. 
Nan, and other Stories. Cr. 8vo., 2s. 6d. 
The Mischief of Monica. Crown 

8vo. , 2s. 6d. 
The One Good Guest. Cr. 8vo. 2s. bd. 
' Ploughed,' and other Stories. Crown 

8vo., 2S. 6d. 
The Matchmaker. Cr. 8vo., 2s. bd. 



Crown 
Crown 

Crown 

, 25. 6d. 
Crown 

, Crown 



Woods.— Weeping Ferry, and other 
Stories. By Margaret L. Woods, 
Author of ' A Village Tragedy '. Crown 
8vo., 6s. 



Popular Science (Natural History, to.). 

OUR HOUSEHOLD INSECTS. | Hartwig (Dr. GEORGE)-*^ W 

The Subterranean World. With 

3 Maps and 80 Woodcuts. 8vo. , 7s. net. 

The Aerial World. With Map, 8 

Plates and 60 Woodcuts. 8vo. , 7s. net. 

Heroes of the Polar World. 19 

Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 2s. 
Wonders of the Tropical Forests. 

40 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. , 2s. 
Workers under the Ground. 29 

Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 2s. 
Marvels over our Heads. 29 

Illustrations. Crown 8vo. , 2s. 
Sea Monsters and Sea Birds. 75 

Illustrations. Crown 8vo. , 2s. 6d. 
Denizens of the Deep. 117 Illus- 
tration^. Crown 8vo., zs. 6d. 
Volcanoes and Earthquakes. 30 

Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 2s. 6d. 
Wild Animals of the Tropics. 
66 Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 2>s. 6d. 

Helmholtz.— Popular Lectures on 
Scientific Subjects. By Hermann 
von Helmholtz. With 68 Woodcuts. 
2 vols. Crown 8vo. , 3s. 6d. each. 



T2t-i +1 fiY 1 , 

An Account of the Insect-Pests found 
in Dwelling-Houses. By Edward A 
Butler, B.A., B.Sc. (Lond.). With 
113 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. , 3^. 6a. 

Eurneaux (W.). 

The Outdoor World ; or, The Young 
Collector's Handbook. With 18 
Plates, 16 of which are coloured, 
and 549 Illustrations in the Text. 
Crown 8vo. , js. 6d. 

Butterflies and Moths (British). 
With 12 coloured Plates and 241 
Illustrations in the Text. Crown 8vo., 
7s. 6d. 

Life in Ponds and Streams. With 
8 coloured Plates and 331 Illustra- 
tions in the Text. Cr. 8vo., p. 6d. 

Hartwig (Dr. George). 
The Sea and its Living Wonders. 

With 12 Plates and 303 Woodcuts. 

8vo., js. net. 
The Tropical World. With 8 Plates 

and 172 Woodcuts. 8vo. , js. net. 
The Polar World. With 3 Maps, 8 

Plates and 85 Woodcuts. 8vo. , js. net. 



24 LONGMANS 6» CO:S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 

Popular Science (Natural History, &c). 



Hudson (W. H.). 

British Birds. With a Chapter on 
Structure and Classificati on by F R ANK 
E. Beddard.F.R.S. With 16 Plates 
(8 of which are Coloured), and over 
ioo Illustrations in the Text. Crown 
8vo. , js. 6d. 

Birds in London. With numerous 
Illustrations from Drawings and 
Photographs. 

Proctor (Richard A.). 

Light Science for Leisure Hours. 
Familiar Essays on Scientific Subjects. 
3 vols. Crown 8vo., $s. each. 

Rough Ways made Smooth. Fami- 
liar Essays on Scientific Subjects. 
Crown 8vo., 3-y. 6d. 

Pleasant Ways in Science. 
Crown 8vo. , 35. 6d. 

Nature Studies. By R. A. Proctor, 
Grant Allen, A. Wilson, T. 
Foster and E. Clodd. Crown 
8vo., 3s. 6d. 

Leisure Readings. By R. A. Proc- 
tor, E. Clodd, A. Wilson, T. 
Foster, and A. C. Ran yard. Cr. 
8vo. , 3s. 6d. 

*#* For Mr. Proctor 's other books see 
Messrs. Longmans & Co.'s Catalogue of 
Scientific Works. 

Stanley.— A Familiar History of 
Birds. By E. Stanley, D.D., for- 
merly Bishop of Norwich. With 160 
Illustrations. Crown 8vo. , 35. 6d. 

Wood (Rev. J. G.). 
Homes without Hands : a Descrip- 
tion of the Habitation of Animals, 
classed according to the Principle of 
Construction. With 140 Illustrations. 
8vo. , js. net. 



Wood (Rev. J. G.)— continued. 

Insects at Home . a Popular Account 
of British Insects, their Structure, 
Habits and Transformations. With 
700 Illustrations. 8vo., js. net. 

Insects Abroad : a Popular Account 
of Foreign Insects, their Structure, 
Habits and Transformations. With 
600 Illustrations. 8vo., 7s. net. 

Bible Animals : a Description ol 
every Living Creature mentioned in 
the Scriptures. With 112 Illustra- 
tions. 8vo. , js. net. 

Petland Revisited. With 33 Illus- 
trations. Cr. 8vo., 3s. 6d. 

Out of Doors ; a Selection of Origi- 
nal Articles on Practical Natural 
History. With 11 Illustrations. Cr. 
8vo. , 3-S-. 6d. 

Strange Dwellings : a Description 
of the Habitations of Animals, 
abridged from 'Homes without 
Hands '. With 60 Illustrations. Cr. 
8vo. , 3s. 6d. 

Bird Life of the Bible. 32 Illustra- 
tions. Crown 8vo., 3s. 6d. 

Wonderful Nests. 30 Illustrations. 
Crown 8vo. , 3s. 6d. 

Homes under the Ground. 28 
Illustrations. Crown 8vo. , 3s. 6d. 

Wild Animals of the Bible. 29 
Illustrations. Crown 8vo. , 3.?. 6d. 

Domestic Animals of the Bible. 
23 Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 3^. 6d. 

The Branch Builders. 28 Illustra- 
tions. Crown 8vo., is. 6d. 

Social Habitations and Parasitic 
Nests. 18 Illustrations. Crown 
8vo., 2S. 



Works of Reference. 



Longmans' Gazetteer of the 
World. Edited by George G. Chis- 
HOLM, M.A., B.Sc. Imp. 8vo., £2 2s. 
cloth. £2 I2J-. 6d. half-morocco. 

Maunder (Samuel). 

Biographical Treasury. With Sup- 
plement brought down to 1889. By 
Rev. James Wood. Fcp. 8vo. , 6s. 



Maunder {Samuel)— continued. 

Treasury of Geography, Physical, 
Historical, Descriptive, and Political. 
With 7 Maps and 16 Plates. Fcp. 
8vo. , 6s. 

The Treasury of Bible Know- 
ledge. By the Rev. 7. Ayre, M.A. 
With 5 Maps, 15 Plates, and 300 
Woodcuts. Fcp. 8vo. , 6s. 



LONGMANS 6* CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 25 



Works of Reference — continued. 



Maunder (Samuel)— continued. 

Treasury of Knowledge and 
Library of Reference. Fcp. 8vo., 
6s. 

Historical Treasury: Fcp. 8vo., 6s. 

Scientific and Literary Treasury. 
Fcp. 8vo. ( 6s. 

The Treasury of Botany. Edited 
by J. Lindley, F.R.S., and T. 
Moore, F.L.S. With 274 Wood- 
cuts and 20 Steel Plates. 2 vols. 
Fcp. 8vo., 12s. 



Roget.-THESAURUS of EnglishWords 
and Phrases. Classified and Ar- 
ranged so as to Facilitate the Expression 
of Ideas and assist in Literary Composi- 
tion. By Peter Mark Roget, M.D., 
F.R.S. Recomposed throughout, en- 
larged and improved, partly from the 
Author's Notes and with a full Index, 
by the Author's Son, John Lewis 
Roget. Crown 8vo. , ioj-. 6d. 

Willieh.— Popular Tables for giving 
information for ascertaining the value of 
Lifehold, Leasehold, and Church Pro- 
perty, the Public Funds, &c. By 
Charles M. Willich. Edited by H. 
Bence Jones. Crown 8vo. , 10s. 6d. 



I 



Children's Books. 



Crake (Rev. A. D.). 

Edwy the Fair; or, the First Chro- 
nicle of yEscendune. Crown8vo. , 2s.6d. 

Alfgar the Dane: or, the Second Chro- 
nicle of ^Escendune. Cr. 8vo., 2s. 6d. 

The Rival Heirs : being the Third 
and Last Chronicle of yEscendune. 
Crown 8vo. , 2s. 6d. 

The House of Walderne. A Tale 
of the Cloister and the Forest in the 
Days of the Barons' Wars. Crown 
8vo., 2s. 6d. 

Brian Fitz-Count. A Story of Wal- 
lingford Castle and Dorchester Abbey. 
Crown 8vo., 2s. 6d 

Lang (Andrew)— Edited by. 
The Blue Fairy Book. With 138 

Illustrations. Crown 8vo. , 6s. 
The Red Fairy Book. With 100 

Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 6s. 
The Green Fairy Book. With 99 

Illustrations. Crown 8vo. , 6s. 
The Yellow Fairy Book. With 104 

Illustrations. Crown Svo., 6s. 
The Pink Fairy Book. With 67 

Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 6s. 
The Blue Poetry Book. With 100 

Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 6s. 
The Blue Poetry Book. School 

Edition, without Illustrations. Fcp. 

8vo. , 2s. 6d. 
The True Story Book. With 66 

Illustrations. Crown 8vo. , 6s. 



Lang (Andrew)— continued. 
The Red True Story Book. With 

100 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. , 6s. 
The Animal Story Book. With 

67 Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 6s. 

Meade (L. T.). 

Daddy's Boy. With Illustrations. 
Crown 8vo. , 3s. 6d. 

Deb and the Duchess. With Illus- 
trations. Crown 8vo., 3^. 6d. 

The Beresford Prize. With Illustra- 
tions. Crown 8vo. , y- 6d. 

The House of Surprises. With Illu- 
strations. Crown 8vo. , 3s. 6d. 

Molesworth. — Silverthorns. By 
Mrs. Molesworth. With Illustrations. 
Crown 8vo., $s. 

Praeger.— The Adventures of the 
Three Bold Babes : Hector, Honoria 
and Alisander. A Story in Pictures. 
By S. Rosamond Praeger. With 24 
Coloured Plates and 24 Outline Pic- 
tures. Oblong 4to., 35. 6d. 

Stevenson.— A Child's Garden op 
Verses. By Robert Louis Stevenson. 
fcp. 8vo., S s - 

Sullivan.— Here They Are ! More 
Stories. Written and Illustrated by 
Tamks F. Sullivan. Crown 8vo. , 6s. 






26 LONGMANS & CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 



Children's Books — continued. 



Upton (Florence K., and Bertha). ] 
The Adventures of Two Dutch j 
Dolls and a ' Golliwogg'. With 
31 Coloured Plates and numerous 
Illustrations in the Text. Oblong 
4to. , 6s. 

The Golliwogg's Bicycle Club. 
With 31 Coloured Plates and 
numerous Illustrations in the Text. 
Oblong 4to., 6s. 



Upton (Florence K., and Bertha)— 

con tinned. 

The Vege-Men's Revenge. With 31 
Coloured Plates and numerous Illus- 
trations in the Text. Oblong 4to., 6s. 

Wordsworth.— The Snow Garden, 
and other Fairy Tales for Children. By 
Elizabeth Wordsworth. With 10 
Illustrations by Trevor Haddon. 
Crown 8vo. , 3.J. 6d. 



Longmans' Series 

Price 2s. 



Atelier (The) Du Lys : or 

Student in the Reign of Terror. 

By the same Author. 

Mademoiselle Mori: 

a Tale of Modern 

Rome. 
In the Olden Time : 
Tale of the 



of Books for Girls. 

6d. each. 

an Art j Very Young ; and Quite Another 
Story. Two Stories. By Jean Inge- 
low. 



The Younger Sister. 

That Child. 

Under a Cloud. 

Hester's Venture. 
_ The Fiddler of Lugau. 
Peasant War in A Child of the Revolu- 
Germany. | tion. 



Atherstone Priory. By L. N. Comyn. 
The Story of a Spring Morning, &c. 

By Mrs. Molesworth. Illustrated. 
The Palace in the Garden. By 

Mrs. Molesworth. Illustrated. 
Neighbours. By Mrs. Molesworth. 
The Third Miss St. Quentin. By 

Mrs. Molesworth. 



Can this be Love ? By Louisa Parr. 

Keith Deramore. By the Author of 
' Miss Molly '. 

Sidney. By Margaret Deland. 

An Arranged Marriage. By Doro- 
thea Gerard. 

Last Words to Girls on Life at 
School and After School. By 
Maria Grey. 



Stray Thoughts for Girls. By 
Lucy H. M. Soulsby, Head Mistress 
of Oxford High School. i6mo. , is. 6d. 
net. 



The Silver 

Crown 8vo. 3^. 6d. 
Arnold's (Sir Edwin) Seas and Lands. 

With 71 Illustrations. 3^. 6d. 
Bagehot's (W.) Biographical Studies. 

y. 6d. 
Bagehot's (W.) Economic Studies. 3^. 6d. 
Bagehot's (W.) Literary Studies. With 

Portrait. 3 vols. 3^. 6d. each. 
Baker's (Sir S. W.) Eight Years in 

Ceylon. With 6 Illustrations. 3s. 6d. 
Baker's (Sir S. W.) Rifle and Hound in 

Ceylon. With 6 Illustrations. 3s. 6d. 
Baring-Gould's (Rev. S.) Curious Myths 

of the Middle Ages, y 6d - 
Baring-Gould's (Rev. S.) Origin and 

Development of Religious Belief. 2 

vols. 2 s - 6d- each. 



Library. 

each Volume. 

Becker's (W. A.) Gallus : or, Roman 
Scenes in the Time of Augustus. With 
26 Illustrations. 3^. 6d. 

Becker's (W. A.) Charicles : or, Illustra- 
tions of the Private Life of the Ancient 
Greeks. With 26 Illustrations. 3s. 6d. 

Bent's (J. T.) The Ruined Cities of Ma- 
Ehonaland. With 117 Illustrations. 
3 s. 6d. 

Brassey's (Lady) A Voyage in the ' Sun- 
beam '. With 66 Illustrations. 3*. 6d. 

Butler's (Edward A.) Our Household 
Insects. With 7 Plates and 113 Illus- 
trations in the Text. y. 6d. 

Clodd's (E.) Story of Creation : a Plain 
Account of Evolution. With 77 Illus- 
trations. 2 s - 6d- 



LONGMANS 6 s CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORK'S. 27 



The Silver Library — continued. 



Conybeare (Rev. W. J.) and Howson's 

(Very Re*. J. S.) Life and Epistles of 

St. Paul. With 46 Illustrations, 3s. 6d. 
DougaH's(L.)BeggarsAll; a Novel. 3s.6d. 
Doyle's (A. Gonan) Micah Clarke : a Tale 

of Monmouth's Rebellion. With 10 

Illustrations. 3s. 6d. 
Doyle's (A. Conan) The Captain of the 

Polestar, and other Tales. 3s. 6d. 
Doyle's (A. Conan) The Refugees : A 

Tale of the Huguenots. With 25 

Illustrations, 3s. 6d. 
Doyle's (A. Conan) The Stark Munro 

Letters. 3s. 6d. 
Froude's (J. A.) The History of England, 

from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat 

of the Spanish Armada. 12 vols. 

3s. 6d. each. 
Froude's (J. A.) The English in Ireland. 

3 vols. ioj. 6d. 
Froude's (J. A.) The Divorce of Catherine 

of Aragon. 3.5-. 6d. 
Froude's (J. A.) The Spanish Story of 

the Armada, and other Essays. 3s. 6d. 
Froude's (J. A.) Short Studies on Great 

Subjects. 4 vols. 3^. 6d. each. 
Froude's (J. A.) The Council of Trent. 

3s. 6d. 
Froude's (J. A.) Thomas Carlyle: a 

History of his Life. 

1795- l8 35- 2 vols. is. 

1834-1881. 2 vols. 7J. 
Froude's (J. A.) Caesar : a Sketch. 3s. 6d. I 
Froude's (J. A.) The Two Chiefs of Dun- 
boy: an Irish Romance of the Last 

Century. 3s. 6d. 
Gleig's (Rev. G. R.) Life of the Duke of 

Wellington. With Portrait. 3s. 6d. 
Greville's (C. C. F.) Journal of the 

Reigns of King George IY., King 

William IY., and Queen Yictoria. 

8 vols, 3s. 6d. each. 
Haggard's (H. R.) She: A History of 

Adventure. 32 Illustrations. 3s. 6d. 
Haggard's (H. R.) Allan Quatermain. 

With 20 Illustrations. 3s. 6d. 
Haggard's (H. R.) Colonel Quaritch, 

V.C. : a Tale of Country Life. 3s. 6d. 
Haggard's (H. R.) Cleopatra. With 29 

Illustrations. 3s. 6d. 
Haggard's (H. R.) Eric Brighteyes. 

With 51 Illustrations. 3s. 6d. 
Haggard's (H. R.) Beatrice. 3s. 6d. 
Haggard's (H. R.) Allan's Wife. With 

34 Illustrations. 35. 6d. 



Haggard's (H. R.) Montezuma's Daugh- 
ter. With 25 Illustrations. 3s. 6d. 

Haggard's (H. R.) The Witch's Head. 
With 16 Illustrations. 3s. 6d. 

Haggard's (H. R.) Mr. Meeson's Will. 
With 16 Illustrations. 3^. 6d. 

Haggard's (H. R.) Nada the Lily. With 
23 Illustrations. 3s. 6d. 

Haggard's (H. R.) Dawn. With 16 Illus- 
trations. 3s. 6d. 

Haggard's (H. R.) The People of the Mist. 
With 16 Illustrations. 3.?. 6d. 

Haggard's (H. R.) Joan Haste. With 
20 Illustrations. 3s. 6d. 

Haggard (H. R.) and Lang's (A.) The 
World's Desire. With27lllus. 3$. 6d. 

Harte's (Bret) In the Carquinez Woods, 
and other Stories. 3^. 6d. 

Helmholtz's (Hermann von) Popular Lec- 
tures on Scientific Subjects. With 68 
Illustrations. 2 vols. 3s. 6d. each. 

Hornung's (E. W.) The Unbidden Guest. 
3s. 6d. 

Howitt's (W.) Yisits to Remarkable 
Places. With 80 Illustrations. 3s. 6d. 

Jefferies'(R.)Th« Story of My Heart : My 
• Autobiography. With Portrait. 3s. 6d. 

Jefferles' (R.) Field and Hedgerow. 
With Portrait. 3s. 6d. 

Jefferles' (R.) Red Deer. 17 Illus. 3s. 6d, 

Jefferies' (R.) Wood Magic: a Fable. 
3s, 6d. 

Jefferies' (R.) The Toilers of the Field. 
With Portrait from the Bust in Salis- 
bury Cathedral. 3^. 6d. 

Kaye (Sir J.) and Malleson's (Colonel) 
History of the Indian Mutiny of 
1857-8. 6 vols. 3.r. 6d. each. 

Knight's(E. F.)The Cruise of the ' Alerte ' : 
the Narrative of a Search for Treasure 
on the Desert Island of Trinidad. 
With 2 Maps and 23 Illustrations. 
3s. 6d. 

Knight's (E. F.) Where Three Empires 
Meet : a Narrative of Recent Travel in 
Kashmir, Western Tibet, Baltistan, 
Gilgit. With a Map and 54 Illustra- 
tions. 3s. 6d 

Knight's (E. F.) The 'Falcon' on the 
Baltic. With Map and 11 Illustra- 
tions. 3s. 6d. 

Koestlin's (J.) Life of Luther. 
Illustrations, &c. 3^. 6d. 

Lang's (A.) Angling Sketches. 
trations. 3s. 6d. 

Lang's (A.) The Monk of Fife. 
Illustrations. 3s. 6d. 



With 62 
20 Illus- 
With 13 



28 LONGMANS 6« CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 



The Silver Library— continued. 



Lang's (A.) Custom and Myth : Studies 
of Early Usage and Belief. 3s. 6d. 

Lang's (Andrew) Cock Lane and 
Common-Sense. With a New Pre- 
face. 3s. 6d. 

Lees (J. A.) and Clutter-buck's (W.J.)B.C. 
1887, A Ramble in British Columbia. 
With Maps and 75 Illustrations, v. 6d. 

Macaulay's (Lord) Essays and Lays of 
Ancient Rome. With Portrait and 
Illustration. 35. 6d. 

Hacleod's (H. D.) Elements of Bank- 
ing. 35. 6d. 

Marbot's (Baron de) Memoirs. Trans- 
lated. 2 vols. 7s. 

Harshman's (J. C.) Memoirs of Sir Henry 
Havelock. 3s. 6d. 

Max Muller's (F.) India, what can it 
teach us ? 3s. 6d. 

Max Miiller's (F.) Introduction to the 
Science of Religion. 3s. 6d. 

Merivale's (Dean) History of the Romans 
under the Empire. 8 vols. y. 6d. ea. 

Mill's (J. S.) Political Economy. 3s. 6d. 

Mill's (J. S.) System of Logic. 3s. 6d. 

Milner's (Geo.) Country Pleasures : the 
Chronicle of a Year chiefly in a garden. 
3s. 6d. 

Hansen's (F.) The First Crossing of 
Greenland. With Illustrations and 
a Map. 3s. 6d. 

Phillipps-Wolley's (C.) Snap : a Legend 
of the Lone Mountain. With 13 
Illustrations. 3s. 6d. 

Proctor's (R. A.) The Moon. 3s. 6d. 

Proctor's (R. A.) The Orbs Around Us. 
3s. 6d. 

Proctor's (R. A.) The Expanse of Heaven. 
3s. 6d. 

Proctor's (R. A.) Other Worlds than 
Ours. 3s. 6d. 



Proctor's (R. A.) Our Place among Infi- 
nities : a Series of Essays contrasting 
our Little Abode in Space and Time 
with the Infinities around us. Crown 
8vo. , 3s. 6d. 

Proctor's (R. A.) Other Suns than 
Ours. 3s. 6d. 

Proctor's (R. A.) Rough Ways made 
Smooth. 3J. 6d. 

Proctor's (R. A.) Pleasant Ways in 
Science. 3s. 6d. 

Proctor's (R. A.) Myths and Marvels 
of Astronomy. 3s. 6d. 

Proctor's (R. A.) Nature Studies. 3s. 6d. 

Proctor's (R. A.) Leisure Readings. By 
R. A. Proctor, Edward Clodd, 
Andrew Wilson, Thomas Foster, 
and A. C. Ranyard. With Illustra- 
tions. 3s. 6d. 

Rhoscomyl's (Owen) The Jewel of Ynys 
Galon. With 12 Illustrations. 3s. 6d. 

Rossetti's (Maria F.) A Shadow of Dante. 
3s. 6d. 

Smith's (R. Bosworth) Carthage and the 
Carthaginians. With Maps, Plans, 
&c. 3s. 6d. 

Stanley's (Bishop) Familiar History of 
Birds. With 160 Illustrations. 3s. 6d. 

Stevenson's (R. L.) The Strange Case of 
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ; with other 
Fables. 3s. 6d. 

Stevenson (R. L.) and Osbourne's (LI.) 
The Wrong Box. 3s. 6d. 

Stevenson (Robt. Louis) and Stevenson's 
(Fanny van de Grift)More New Arabian 
Nights. — The Dynamiter. 3.?. 6d. 

Weyman's (Stanley J.) The House of 
the Wolf: a Romance. 3s. 6d. 

Wood's (ReY. J. G.) Petland Revisited. 
With 33 Illustrations. 3s. 6d. 

Wood's (Rev. J. G.) Strange Dwellings. 
With 60 Illustrations. 3c 6d. 

Wood's (Rev. J. G.) Out of Doors. With 
11 Illustrations. 3s. 6d. 



Cookery, Domestic Management, &c. 

De Salis (Mrs.). 



Acton. — Modern Cookery. By Eliza 
Acton. With 150 Woodcuts. Fcp. 
8vo. , 4s. 6d. 

Bull (Thomas, M.D.). 

Hints to Mothers on the Manage- 
ment of their Health during 
the Period of Pregnancy. Fcp. 
8vo., 15. 6d. 

The Maternal Management of 
Children in Health andDisease. 
Fcp. 8vo., is. 6d. 



Cakes and Confections a la Mode. 
Fcp. 8vo., is. 6d. 

Dogs : a Manual for Amateurs. Fcp. 
8vo., is. 6d. 

Dressed Game and Poultry X la 
Mode. Fcp. 8vo., is. 6d. 

Dressed Vegetables a la Mode. 
Fcp. 8vo., is. 6 J. 



LONGMANS & CO:S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 



Cookery, Domestic Management, &c— continued, 

De Salis (Mrs.) — continued. 
Drinks X la Mode. Fcp. 8vo. , is. bd. 
Entries X la Mode. Fcp. 8vo. , is. 6d. 
Floral Decorations. Fcp. 8vo. , is. 6d. 

Gardening a la Mode. Fcp. 8vo. 
Part I. Vegetables, is. 6d. 



Part II. Fruits, is. bd. 

National Viands X la Mode. 
8vo. , is. 6d. 



Fcp. 



New-laid Eggs. Fcp. 8vo„ is. 6d. 

Oysters X la Mode. Fcp. 8vo. , is. 6d. 

Puddings and Pastry X la Mode. 
Fcp. 8vo. , is. 6d. 

Savouries X la Mode. Fcp. 8vo.,is. 6d. 

Soups and Dressed Fish X la Mode. 
Fcp. 8vo., is. 6d. 

Sweets and Supper Dishes X la 
Mode. Fcp. 8vo., is. 6d. 



De Salis (Mrs.)— continued. 

Tempting Dishes for Small In- 
comes. Fcp. 8vo., is. 6d. 

Wrinkles and Notions for Every 
Household. Cr. 8vo., is. 6d. 



Lear.— Maigre Cookery. 
Sidney Lear. i6mo., 2s. 



By H. L. 



Poole. — Cookery for the Diabetic. 
By W. H. and Mrs. Poole. With 
Preface by Dr. PAVY. Fcp. 8vo., 2s. 6d. 

Walker (Jane H.). 
A Book for Every Woman. 

Part I. The Management of Children 
in Health and out of Health. Cr. 
8vo. , is. 6d. 
Part II. Woman in Health and out 
of Health. Crown 8vo, is. 6d. 
A Handbook for Mothers: being 
Simple Hints to Women on the 
Management of their Health during 
Pregnancy and Confinement, together 
with Plain Directions as to the Care 
of Infants. Cr. 8vo., 2s. 6d. 



Miscellaneous and Critical Works. 



Allingham.— Varieties in Prose. 

By William Allingham. 3 vols. Cr. 

8vo, iSs. (Vols. 1 and 2, Rambles, by 

Patricius Walker. Vol. 3, Irish 

Sketches, etc.) 
Armstrong.— Essays and Sketches. 

By Edmund J . Armstrong. Fcp. 8 vo . , 55. 

Bagehot.— Literary Studies. By 

Walter Bagehot. With Portrait. 

3 vols. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d. each. 
Baring-G-ould.— Curious Myths of 

the Middle Ages. By Rev. S. 

Baring-Gould. Crown 8vo. , 35. 6d. 
Baynes.— Shakespeare Studies, and 

Other Essays. By the late Thomas 

Spencer Baynes, LL.B. , LL.D. 

With a Biographical Preface by Prof. 

Lewis Campbell. Crown 8vo. , js. 6d. 
Boyd (A. K. H.) (< A.K.H.B.'). 

And see MISCELLANEOUS THEOLO- 
GICAL WORKS, p. 32. 

Autumn Holidays of a Country 
Parson. Crown 8vo., 3s. 6d. 

Commonplace Philosopher. Crown 
8vo., y. 6d. 

Critical Essays of a Country 
Parson. Crown 8vo. , 3s. 6d. 



Boyd (A. K. H.) (< A.K.H.B.')- 

continued. 

East Coast Days and Memories. 
Crown 8vo., 35. 6d. 

Landscapes, Churches and Mora- 
lities. Crown 8vo. , 3^. 6d. 

Leisure Hours in Town. Crown 
8vo. , 35. bd. 

Lessons of Middle Age. Cr.8vo.,3J.6^. 

Our Little Life. Two Series. Cr. 
8vo. , 3J-. bd. each. 

Our Homely Comedy: and Tragedy. 
Crown 8vo., y. bd. 

Recreations of a Country Parson. 
Three Series. Cr. 8vo., 3s. bd. each. 

Brookings.— Briefs for Debate on 
Current Political, Economic and 
Social Topics. Edited by W. Du 
Bois Brookings, A.B. of the Harvard 
Law School, and Ralph Curtis Ring- 
walt, A.B. , Assistant in Rhetoric in 
Columbia University, New York. With 
an Introduction on ' The Art of Debate' 
by Albert Bushnell Hart, Ph.D., of 
Harvard University. With full Index. 
Crown 8vo., bs. 



30 LONGMANS &• Co.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 



Miscellaneous and Critical Work.*— continued. 



Butler (Samuel). 

Erewhon. Cr. 8vo., $s. 

The Fair Haven. A Work in Defence 
of the Miraculous Element in our 
Lord's Ministry. Cr. 8vo. , js. 6d. 

Life and Habit. An Essay after a 
Completer View of Evolution. Cr. 
8vo., js. 6d. 

Evolution, Old and New. Cr. 8vo., 
xos. 6d. 

Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont 
and Canton Ticino. Illustrated. 
Pott 410. , 10s. 6d. 

Luck, or Cunning, as the Main 
Means of Organic Modification ? 
Cr. 8vo., js. 6d. 

Ex Voto. An Account of the Sacro 
Monte or New Jerusalem at Varallo- 
Sesia. Crown 8vo., 10s. 6d. 

The Authoress of the Odyssey, 
where and when she wrote, 
who She was, the Use She made 
of the Iliad, and how the Poem 
grew under Her hands. With 
Illustrations. 8vo. , zos. 6d. 

CHARITIES REGISTER, THE AN- 
NUAL, AND DIGEST. Volume 
for 1898 : being a Classified Register 
of Charities in or available in the Metro- 
polis. With an Introduction by C. S. 
Loch, Secretary to the Council of the 
Charity Organisation Society, London. 
8vo., 4J. 

Dreyfus. — Lectures on French 
Literature. Delivered in Melbourne 
by Irma Dreyfus. With Portrait of 
the Author. Large crown 8vo. , 12^. 6d. 

Evans.— The Ancient Stone Imple- 
ments, Weapons, and Ornaments 
of Great Britain. By Sir John 
Evans, K.C.B., D.C.L., LL.D., 
F.R.S., etc. With 537 Illustrations. 
Medium 8vo., 28^. 

Gwilt.— An Encyclopaedia of Archi- 
tecture. By Joseph Gwilt, F.S.A. 
Illustrated with more than 1100 Engrav- 
ings on Wood. Revised (1888), with 
Alterations and Considerable Additions 
by Wyatt Papworth. 8vo., £2 izs. 6d. 

Hamlin.— A Text-Book of the His- 
tory of Architecture. By A. D. F. 
Hamlin, A.M. With 229 Illustrations. 
Crown 8vo., js. 6d. 



dy. 



Haweis.— Music and Morals. By the 
Rev. H. R. Haweis. With Portrait ot 
the Author, and numerous Illustrations, 
Facsimiles and Diagrams. Crown 8vo. , 
js. 6d. 

Hime. — Stray Military Papers. 
By Lieut. -Colonel H. W. L. Hime (late 
Royal Artillery). 8vo. , js. 6d. 
Contents. — Infantry Fire Formations — 

On Marking at Rifle Matches— The Progress 

of Field Artillery — The Reconnoitering Duties 

of Cavalry. 

Indian Ideals (No. 1). 

Narada Sutra : an Inquiry into 
Love (Bhakti-Jijnasa). Translated 
from the Sanskrit, with an Indepen- 
dent Commentary, by E. T. Sturd 
Crown 8vo. , 2s. 6d. net. 

Jefferies (Richard). 

Field and Hedgerow. With Por- 
trait. Crown 8vo. , 3s. 6d. 

The Story of My Heart : my Auto- 
biography. With Portrait and New 
Prelace by C. J. Longman. Crown 
8vo. , 35-. 6d. 

Red Deer. With 17 Illustrations by J. 
Charlton and H. Tunaly. Crown 
8vo., 35. 6d. 

The Toilers of the Field. With 
Portrait from the Bust in Salisbury 
Cathedral. Crown 8vo., 3s. 6d. 

Wood Magic : a Fable. With Frontis- 
piece and Vignette by E. V. B. Cr. 
8vo., 35. 6d. 

Thoughts from the Writings of 
Richard Jefferies. Selected by 
H. S. Hoole Waylen. i6mo. , y. 6d. 

Johnson.— The Patentee's Manual: 
a Treatise on the Law and Practice of 
Letters Patent. By J. & J. H. John- 
son, Patent Agents, &c. 8vo. , 10s. 6d. 

Lang (Andrew). 
Modern Mythology. 8vo. gs. 
Letters to Dead Authors. Fcp. 

8vo. , 2s. 6d. net. 
Books and Bookmen. With 2 

Coloured Plates and 17 Illustrations. 

Fcp. 8vo. , 2.s. 6d. net. 
Old Friends. Fcp. 8vo., 2s. 6d. net. 
Letters on Literature. Fcp. 8vo., 

2s. 6d. net. 
Cock Lane and Common-Sense. 

Crown 8vo. , 3s. 6d. 
The Book of Dreams and Ghosts. 

Crown 8vo., 6s. 
Essays in Little. With Portrait of 

the Author. Crown 8vo., 2s. 6d. 



LONGMANS &■> CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 31 



Miscellaneous and Critical Works— continued. 



Lectures on Har- 
Geo. A. Macfarren. 



Miacfarren. - 

MONY. By Si 
8vo., 12s. 
Madden— The Diary of Master 
William Silence : a Study of Shake- 
speare and Elizabethan Sport. By the 
Right Hon. D. H. Madden. 8vo., j6s. 
Max Muller(F.). 
India : What can it Teach us ? Cr. 

8vo. , 3j. 6d. 
Chips from a German Workshop. 
Vol. I. Recent Essays and Addresses. 

Cr. 8vo., 6s. 6d. net. 
Vol. II. Biographical Essays. Cr. 

8vo., 6s. 6d. net. 
Vol. III. Essays on Language and 

Literature. Cr. 8vo. . 6s. 6d. net. 
Vol. IV. Essays on Mythology and 
Folk Lore. Crown 8vo. , 8s. 6d. net. 
Contributions to the Science of 
Mythology. 2 vols. 8vo. ( 32J. 
(VCilner. — Country Pleasures : the 
Chronicle of a Year chiefly in a Garden. 
By George Milner. Cr. 8vo., 3^. 6d. 
Morris (William). 
Signs of Change. Seven Lectures. 

Post 8vo. , 4s. 6d. 
Hopes and Fears for Art. Five 
Lectures. Crown 8vo. , 4^. 6d. 
Orchard. — The Astronomy of 
' Milton's Paradise Lost '. By 
Thomas N. Orchard, M.D. , Member 
of the British Astronomical Association. 
With 13 Illustrations. 8vo. , 155. 
?oore(GEORGE Vivian, M.D..F.R.C.P.). 
Essays on Rural Hygiene. With 13 

Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 6s. 6d. 
The Dwelling House. With 36 
Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 3^. 6d. 
Proctor. — Strength : How to get 
Strong and keep Strong, with Chapters 
on Rowing and Swimming, Fat, Age, 
and the Waist. By R. A. Proctor. 
With 9 Illustrations. Cr. 8vo, 2s. 



PROGRESS IN WOMEN'S EDUCA- 
TION IN THE BRITISH EMPIRE 
Being the Report of the Education Sec 
tion, Victorian Era Exhibition, 1897 
Edited by the Countess of Warwick 
With 10 Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 6s, 
Rossetti.— A Shadow of Dante : be 
ing an Essay towards studying Himself 
his World, and his Pilgrimage. By 
Maria Francesca Rossetti. Crown 
8vo., 2 s - 6d. 
SolovyofF.— A Modern Priestess of 
Isis (Madame Blavatsky). Abridged 
and Translated on Behalf of the Society 
for Psychical Research from the Russian 
of Vse VOLOD Sergyeevich Solovyoff. 
By Walter Leaf, Litt. D. With 
Appendices. Crown 8vo., 6s. 
Soulsby (Lucy H. M.). 
Stray Thoughts on Reading. Small 

8vo. , 2s. 6d. net. 
Stray Thoughts for Girls. i6mo. , 

is. 6d. net. 
Stray Thoughts for Mothers and 

Teachers. Fcp. 8vo., 2s. 6d. net. 
Stray Thoughts for Invalids. 

i6mo. , 2s. net. 
Stevens.— On the Stowage of Ships 
and their Cargoes. With Informa- 
tion regarding Freights, Charter-Parties, 
&c. By Robert White Stevens, 
8vo., 2 1 s. 
Turner and Sutherland. — The 
Development of Australian Liter- 
ature. By Henry Gyles Turner 
and Alexander Sutherland. With 
5 Portraits and an Illust. Cr. 8vo. , 5s. 
White. — An Examination of the 
Charge of Apostasy against 
Wordsworth. By William Hale 
White, Editor of ' A Description of the 
Wordsworth and Coleridge MSS. in the 
Possession of Mr. T. Norton Longman '. 
Crown 8vo. , 3^. 6d. 



Miscellaneous Theological Works. 

For Church of England and Roman Catholic Works see Messrs. Longmans & Co.'s 
Special Catalogues. 



Balfour.— The Foundations of Be- 
lief : being Notes Introductory to the 
Study of Theology. By the Right Hon. 
Arthur J. Balfour, M. P. 8vo., 12s. 6d. 

3ird (Robert). 
A Child's Religion. Crown 8vo. ; 2s. 
Joseph the Dreamer. Cr. 8vo. , 5s. 



Bird (Robert) — continued. 
Jesus, The Carpenter of Nazareth. 

Twelfth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5^. 
To be had also in Two Parts, price 

2s. 6d. each. 
Part. I.— Galilee and the Lake of 

Gennesaret. 
Part II. — Jerusalem and the Per^ea. 



32 LONGMANS 6» CO.'S STANDARD AND GENERAL WORKS. 



Miscellaneous Theological Works — continued. 

Mar tine an (James) — continued. 

Endeavours after the Christian 
Life. Discourses. Cr. 8vo. , 7s. 6d. 

The Seat of Authority in Religion. 
8vo., 14s. 

Essays, Reviews, and Addresses. 4 
Vols. Crown 8vo. , js. 6d. each. I. 
Personal; Political. II. Ecclesiastical ; 
Historical. III. Theological; Philo- 
sophical. IV. Academical ; Religious. 

Home Prayers, with Two Services for 
Public Worship. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 



Boyd (A. K. H.) (< A.K.H.B.'). 

Occasional and Immemorial Days : 
Discourses. Crown 8vo. , 7s. 6d. 

Counsel and Comfort from a City 
Pulpit. Crown 8vo., y. 6d. 

Sunday Afternoons in the Parish 
Church of a Scottish University 
City. Crown 8vo., y. 6d. 

Changed Aspects of Unchanged 
Truths. Crown 8vo. , y. 6d. 

Graver Thoughts of a Country 
Parson. Three Series. Crown 8vo., 
3s. 6d . each. 

Present Day Thoughts. Crown 8vo. , 
y. 6d. 

Seaside Musings. Cr. 8vo. , 3s. 6d. 

'To Meet the Day' through the 
Christian Year ; being a Text of Scrip- 
ture, with an Original Meditation and 
a Short Selection in Verse for Every 
Day. Crown 8vo. , 4s. 6d. 

Gibson. — The Abbe de Lamennais 
and the Liberal Catholic Move- 
ment in France. By the Hon. W. 
Gibson. With Portrait. 8vo., 12s. 6d. 

Kalisch (M. M., Ph.D.). 

Bible Studies. Part I. Prophecies 
of Balaam. 8vo., 10s. 6d. Part II. 
The Book of Jonah. 8vo. , 10s. 6d. 

Commentary on the Old Testament: 
with a new Translation. Vol. I. 
Genesis. 8vo., i8j-. Or adapted for the 
General Reader. 12s. Vol. II. Exodus. 
1 5 s. Or adapted for the General 
Reader. 12s. Vol. III. Leviticus, Part 

I. 15^. Or adapted for the General 
Reader. 8j. Vol. IV. Leviticus, Part 

II. 15J. Or adapted for the General 
Reader. 8s. 

Maedonald (George). 

Unspoken Sermons. Three Series. 
Crown 8vo., 3.5. 6d. each. 

The Miracles of Our Lord. Crown 
8vo., 3-y. 6d. 

Martineau (James). 
Hours of Thought on Sacred 
Things : Sermons. 2 Vols. Crown 
8vo. 3s. 6d. each. r-\ . 



50,000—3/98. 



Max Muller (F.). 

The Origin and Growth of Re- 
ligion, as illustrated by the Religions 
of India. The Hibbert Lectures, 
delivered at the Chapter House, 
Westminster Abbey, in 1878. Crown 
8vo., 7s. 6d. 

Introduction to the Science of 
Religion : Four Lectures delivered at 
the Royal Institution. Cr. 8vo.,y. 6d. 

Natural Religion. The Gifford 
Lectures, delivered before the Uni- 
versity of Glasgow in 1888. Cr. 8vo. 

Physical Religion. The Gifford 
Lectures, delivered before the Uni- 
versity f Glasgow in 1890. Cr. 8vo., 

Anthropological Religion. The Gif- 
ford Lectures, delivered before the 
University of Glasgow in 1891. Cr. 
8vo., y. 

Theosophy ; or, Psychological Reli- 
gion. The Gifford Lectures, delivered 
before the University of Glasgow in 
1892. Cr. 8vo. , 5-y. 

Three Lectures on the Vedanta 
Philosophy, delivered at the Royal 
Institution in March, 1894. 8vo. , 5$. 

Romanes.— Thoughts on Religion. 
By George J. Romanes, LL.D, 
F.R.S. Crown 8vo., 4s. 6d. 

Vivekananda. — Yoga Philosophy - 
Lectures delivered in New York, Winte: 
of 1895-6, by the SWAMI VIVEKAN- 
ANDA, on Raja Yoga ; or, Conquering 
the Internal Nature ; also Patanjali's 
Yoga Aphorisms, with Commentaries. 

""•"Crown 8vo., y. 6d. 

ERSITV TRESS. 






** : 






V 



iV </> 



V 5 '^ 



v x 



N C 



x^y^s ■■-■ ■■ 



a> ^>. 



^.,^ . ; ^ 



^^, 












■i -^ 



,0 



o^ "7 



-> 






• o- 



■^^ : /= '%$ : 



^ ^ 




O V 















^. '»•■-* ** ' ..., °*. * 






<r %. 



\ 



^ *g€{/^* 



o. .0' 

o 



O 



,^ ^ 



W 


- 


^ t 




% 

-> 




v o 


S ' '' , 


- s 










^£ 








>*.- 




, %/*tt^\/ 


CV* s x 


•v 


C\ V 











%.,^ 



*■, 



■o v 



^ Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 



o- 



V , v < « « 



o 







Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
1 s Treatment Date: 

PreservationTechnoIogies 

■^ A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Dnve 
v 1 Cranberry Township, PA 16066 

V (724)779-2111 






%v 



** »""; 









■y 


$ 




> 


k 

* 


V 


^ 

cK 




J>> 









■^ 




^ -7*, 







C 


o x 






dS 


-/:> 






^ 






o$ 








,\ v 







- 



